About 500 All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) activists on December 11th, 2019 staged a protest at GS Road, Khanapara point in Guwahati on the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019 throwing traffic out of gear.
The activists will be joined by the students of the Cotton University and the rally will then move towards the Janata Bhawan. CRPF jawans have been deployed to disperse the crowd.
Most of the protestors tied the Axomiya gamusas on their heads and chanted slogans like ‘Joi aai Asom’, ‘Scrap Citizenship Bill, ‘ BJP hai hai’ and so on.
A trail of violence was reported in Assam on December 10th, 2019 as protestors blocked roads, vandalised, torched vehicles and clashed with security personnel.
After an 11-hour Northeast bandh, called by some North East Students Organisation and AASU, protesting the Bill Assam continued to be restive.
The Bill seeks to grant Indian citizenship to the people belonging to the Hindus, Jains, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, and Parsis who have become the victims of religious persecution in Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan and entered India on or before December 31st, 2014.
The agitators said that the Bill nullify spirit of Article 14 of the Constitution of India and the Assam Accord which has fixed March 24th, 1971 as the cut-off to identify illegal foreigners.
On the night of December 9th, 2019, the Lok Sabha comfortably passed the Bill with 311 votes. The Bill will be taken up in Rajya Sabha on December 11th, 2019.
On the other hand, a two-month-old child died on way to a hospital when the ambulance carrying the ailing baby got stuck in a road blockade in Tripura during an 11- hour bandh to protest against the contentious Bill on December 10th, 2019.
Photo: @smitaranideka
