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Assam CAB protest: Police fired tear gas shells and baton-charged protesters, who fought back.
Guwahati:
Mobile internet services will be suspended in 10 districts of Assam and the army has been asked to be on Standby as tens of thousands of protesters against Citizenship (Amendment) Bill or CAB clashed with policemen on Wednesday, plunging the state into chaos of a magnitude unseen since the violent six-year movement by students that ended with the signing of the Assam accord in 1985.
Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal was among those stuck at the Guwahati Airport on Wednesday amid massive protests over CAB being debated in the Rajya Sabha two days after it was cleared by the Lok Sabha. Mr Sonowal’s security detail, however, managed to take the Chief Minister to his residence through the city, parts of which resembled a warzone.
Though no party or student body has called a shutdown, protesters, a majority of them students, fought pitched battles with security forces in the restive state, including in front of the secretariat, the seat of the BJP government.
Police fired blank shots, tear gas shells and lathi-charged protesters, who fought back. According to student leaders, many protesters were injured in police action in front of the secretariat. A fire-truck used as a water-cannon against protesters was set on fire.
All senior civil and police officials were incommunicado but, according to unofficial accounts, hundreds of protesters have been detained in Guwahati and other places like Dibrugarh and Jorhat, news agency PTI reported.
A large number of students blocked the road near the secretariat complex and pulled down the barricade erected on the arterial G S Road, provoking police action.
They also damaged a stage erected on the road for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s proposed summit meeting with his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe on Sunday, PTI reported. Hoardings and banners advertising the government’s schemes were pulled down and set afire in front of the secretariat.
“This is a barbaric government led by Sarbananda Sonowal. We will not succumb to any pressure till the CAB is repealed,” a student leader was quoted as saying by PTI.
Anti-CAB agitators also clashed with police in Dibrugarh where rubber bullets and tear gas shells were fired to break up protests. A journalist was reported injured in stone throwing.
Protests were reported in Jorhat, Golaghat, Tinsukia, Sivasagar, Bongaigaon, Nagaon, Sonitpur and many other districts since the morning.
A motorcycle rally was organised against the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill in Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal’s hometown Chabua.
Gauhati University, Cotton University and Dibrugarh University postponed examinations scheduled for Wednesday. The campuses were deserted with hardly any student around.
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