Students of Presidency and Jadavpur University in Kolkata took out separate rallies in the city on Monday, 16 December, condemning police action inside the Jamia Millia Islamia campus in Delhi over protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act.
Debraj Debnath, General Secretary of Arts Faculty Students’ Union of Jadavpur University, said around 300 agitators of different student unions participated in a rally from inside the campus to the nearby 8B Bus Stand.
The students carried placards against the amended citizenship law and police crackdown on students in the campus of Jamia Millia and raised slogans against the BJP and Delhi Police, Debnath said.
The Jadavpur University Teachers' Association (JUTA) also expressed support to the protest against the police action and members of the teachers' body were present in the rally, he said.
“The way policemen had beaten up students, including girls, inside the Jamia Millia campus and burst tear gas canisters is reprehensible. We are with our friends of Jamia Millia.”Ushashi Pal, Student
Meanwhile, several students' unions of the Presidency University cutting across party lines took out a rally inside their campus at College Street in the central part of the city.
"We condemn state-sponsored atrocities on students and protest NRC and amended citizenship law," Sayan Chakraborty, a member of a left-wing students' union said.
Police personnel launched a crackdown on protesters inside the Jamia Millia Islamia campus in Delhi on Sunday after buses and police vehicles were gutted during an agitation against the amended citizenship law near the varsity.
CAA, NRC Can be Enforced in Bengal Over My Dead body: Mamata Dares Govt
Daring the Centre to dismiss her government, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee vowed on Monday to not implement the citizenship law and the proposed NRC, which she said can only be enforced in West Bengal “over her dead body”.
Banerjee, who led a mega rally in the heart of the city, alleged that a few people were paid by the BJP to perpetrate violence in the state, even as she blamed some powers from outside West Bengal "acting as friends" of the Muslim community for vandalism and arson.
The TMC supremo, who led the rally from Red Road to Jorasanko Thakur Bari, the ancestral house of Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore in north Kolkata, was joined by thousands of supporters with placards like "No CAA" and "No NRC" "There are some forces from outside the state, who are acting as friends of minorities and have indulged in this violence. These forces are stooges of the BJP, don't fall into their trap," Banerjee said in an apparent reference to Asaduddin Owaisi's AIMIM with whom she got into a war of words recently.
(With inputs from PTI)
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