The administration in Lohardaga district of Jharkhand on Thursday announced a six-hour relaxation in the curfew that was imposed after a clash broke out during a pro-Citizenship Amendment Act rally on January 23, Dainik Jagran reported. The curfew was relaxed for four hours in two phases on Wednesday.
The relaxation of curfew on Thursday was from 9 am to noon and 2 pm to 5 pm.
Police said 21 persons had been arrested in connection with the violence, while several others were being investigated. Security forces conducted a flag march in the Lohardaga town on Wednesday. Peace meetings were organised in all the blocks of the district, police said.
Meanwhile, in Bihar, 15 persons were injured when a clash broke out between two groups with opposing views on the Citizenship Amendment Act and National Register of Citizens in Sitamarhi on Wednesday, ANI reported. Police personnel were deployed in the area where the incident took place.
A Bharat bandh was called by some organisations to protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act and the proposed NRC, but the response to the call was muted in many places. A clash was reported during the shutdown in Maharashtra’s Dhule district. There were incidents of stone-pelting in some districts of Maharashtra and a train blockade in Mumbai.
Here are some pictures of protests during the shutdown:
In Delhi, thousands of protestors, including student groups from major universities, held a protest at Jantar Mantar on Wednesday, PTI reported. Many protestors from Shaheen Bagh also joined the demonstration. Student groups from Jamia Millia Islamia, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi University, Aligarh Muslim University, Maulana Azad National Urdu University and Hyderabad Central University also participated.
Protestors condemned the arrest of JNU student Sharjeel Imam, who was arrested in a sedition case.
Two people were killed and three were injured after violence erupted during protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act and the NRC in West Bengal’s Murshidabad district on Wednesday.
Protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act are continuing across the country, more than a month after it was passed in Parliament. The amendments, notified on January 10, provide citizenship to refugees from six minority religious communities from Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Pakistan, provided they have lived in India for six years and entered the country by December 31, 2014. Twenty-six people died in last month’s protests against the law – all in the BJP-ruled states of Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, and Assam.
The government’s critics and some protestors fear that the amended law and the National Register of Citizens will be misused to target Muslims since the Citizenship Act now has religion as a criterion. There are now fears that a nation-wide National Register of Citizens will be imposed. The Assam NRC had left out around 6% of the state’s population. Work has also begun on the National Population Register, which is the first step to creating an all-Indian NRC identifying undocumented migrants residing in India.
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