Assam Police on alert as organizations plan to resume CAA protests
Assam announcing to relaunch protests against Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), Assam police have sounded alert across the state.
Recently Union Home minister Amit Shah has stated CAA rules will be notified and implemented before Lok Sabha polls. In several places in Assam, police have readied bamboo barricades in anticipation of the protest.
A senior police officer who does not want to be named told ET, “We are anticipating protests however not on the scale which Assam witnessed in 2019 and 2020. There are some organisations which have announced its decision to relaunch the protest however we have taken that seriously and an alert is sounded. Additional forces are deployed in the districts however this deployment is in view of the Lok Sabha polls.”
Assam had witnessed violent protests in 2019 and early 2020 after Parliament passed the CAA, which makes minority communities such as Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan eligible to apply for Indian citizenship. Five people were killed in the protests.
The All Assam Students Union (AASU) and 30 other organisations finalised a series of protests, including a 12-hour hunger strike in all districts on March 9 during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the state.
AASU president Utpal Sarma termed implementation of CAA as a “grave injustice to the people”, he said that the people of Assam have never accepted the CAA and will oppose any step towards its implementation.
Recently the United Opposition Forum
