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Lucknow:
Fresh protests broke out across at least seven Uttar Pradesh districts after Friday prayers this afternoon as thousands defied state-wide prohibitory orders and took to the streets to fight the new citizenship law. Faced with large crowds, stone-pelting protestors and vehicles being torched cops resorted to lathi-charges and used tear gas to dispel crowds and control the situation. Violence has been reported from Muzaffarnagar, Bahraich, Bulandshahr, Gorakhpur, Firozabad, Aligarh and Farukhhabad districts.
In a nearly two-minute-long video of today’s protests in Gorakhpur in the eastern part of the state, posted online by news agency ANI, a crowd of people can be seen standing at one end of a narrow but empty lane; police officers in riot gear are standing at the other.
In the video, protesters are throwing stones and shouting at the cops, at least some of whom are armed with what appear to be assault rifles. As the video plays out the cops, who do not initially react, start throwing stones at back at the protestors.
Gorakhpur: Protestors & police personnel pelt stones at each other during demonstration against #CitizenshipAmendmentAct and National Register of Citizens (NRC). pic.twitter.com/cpVxuCr6Pf
— ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) December 20, 2019
In Bulandshahr, which is in the western part of Uttar Pradesh, one vehicle – reportedly a police jeep – has been torched. Mobile internet services have been suspended in the district with effect from 3 pm “in order to maintain law and order and communal harmony”, District Magistrate Ravindra Kumar said.
In state capital Lucknow, where one person died on Thursday from what authorities called “alleged firearm injury”, strict security measures had been enforced ahead of Friday prayers. According to news agency PTI, the cops said there had been no clashes till noon and prayers had passed peacefully, even though markets wore a deserted look and internet services were suspended.
Prohibitory orders have been in place in the state since November 9, the date when the Supreme Court announced its landmark verdict in the Ayodhya land dispute case.
The protests, and the arrests, come amid high drama at Delhi’s Jama Masjid, where Bhim Army chief Chandrashekhar Azad led thousands in a rally against the controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Act, or CAA.
Uttar Pradesh, with Assam and the national capital, has seen numerous protests – some violent – against the citizenship law, including a widely condemned crackdown on students of Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) late on Sunday night.
Protests have also spread like wildfire in South India; two persons died from police firing in Mangaluru in Karnataka yesterday.
The Citizenship (Amendment) Act, or CAA, makes it easier to grant citizenship to non-Muslims from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. Opposition parties, activists, celebrities and students protesting against the law say it discriminates against Muslims and is inimical to constitutional principles of secularism and equality.
With input from PTI
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