BENGALURU: Tension gripped Town Hall area, where thousands of protesters, including students and women descended, defying prohibitory orders, to protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC). The sheer number of protesters, despite prohibitory orders, took police by surprise.
Even as the protesters, including noted writer-historian Ramchandra Guha and political leaders, were detained, a group of students chanted ‘Azaadi!’, condemning the police crackdown on Delhi’s Jamia Millia Islamia University students. Guha was holding a poster of Dr BR Ambedkar and speaking to the media on the Indian Constitution when police detained him.
Hundreds of women were also detained, and some forced to sit inside Ashok Nagar, SJ Park, Cubbon Park and Ulsoor Gate police stations for hours before being released. Several advocates joined the protesters and shouted anti-CAA slogans, standing around Town Hall.
In the afternoon, the crowds swelled as members of various organisations converged to express their solidarity with the protesters. However, police kept taking away protesters in batches, even as fresh protesters landed at the venue.
Guru Dwiji of the National Alliance for Peoples’ Movements indicated that the protests will continue. “We plan to continue the protests for a couple of days, and we want people to come tomorrow as well. We need justice and will not achieve it by one-day protests,” he said. Congress MLA Sowmya Reddy said, “People have come to protest on their own. No politician has appealed to them to do so.”