Delhi is bracing for another day of protests against the citizenship law. The Bhim Army, a political outfit, has given a call to march from Jama Masjid Area (in north Delhi) to Jantar Mantar (in central Delhi) at 1pm. The police has, however, denied permission for the event.
Throughout the day, the protesters are expected to gather at various spots including India Gate and Jamia Millia Islamia, where students and residents have been protesting continuously for nearly a week. The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation, which had closed entry and exit at Jamia Milia Islamia and Jasola Vihar-Shaheen Bagh stations on Friday morning, said all stations have ben opened.
“Normal services have resumed in all stations,” the DMRC said in a tweet.
The DMRC had shut down 20 metro stations on Thursday “as a precautionary measure amid protests” – the maximum number of stations closed on a single day since DMRC began its operation in 2002.
The students of Jamia have extended their solidarity for the march organised by Bhim Army. “This is not a march simply in support of the Muslim community or the broader secular resistance against CAA-NRC. Bhim Army has been raising the critical point that 54% of Dalits are landless, and therefore will not be able to prove their citizenship,” students’ said in a statement.
“Chandrasekhar Azad has made a clear and bold statement that NRC, in particular, is meant to target the larger Bahujan community. In this perspective, CAA becomes a law that ensures the statelessness of Muslims alongside the historically oppressed Bahujans,” they said.
The students have also condemned “continuing police brutality” after “anti-CAA protests in Karnataka’s Mangaluru led to the deaths of two people in police firing.” On Sunday, the university campus was also at the receiving end of an alleged police crackdown injuring over 200 students after protests over CAA-NRC took a violent turn.
Police enforced an unprecedented crackdown in large parts of national capital on Thursday – ordering a prohibition on assembly, switching off mobile connectivity, shutting down Metro stations, and detaining people who defied the ban on demonstrations.
The restrictions led to people going without mobile phone services for four hours in the city, a first, being forced to disembark three Metro stations before their destination and walking to offices in central Delhi, and stuck for nine hours in the worst traffic snarl in Gurugram since 2016.
