Hours after the violence at Jamia Millia University took place on Sunday, triggering protests across the nation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi broke his silence with a number of tweets on Monday, 16 December.
Terming the current protests as “deeply distressing,” PM Modi stated, “Debate, discussion and dissent are essential parts of democracy but, never has damage to public property and disturbance of normal life been a part of our ethos.”
PM Modi’s words were a lot similar to the night the Citizenship Amendment Act was passed in Lok Sabha, when he said the Act shows India’s centuries-old ethos of assimilation of cultures.
‘Act Only for Those Who Have No Other Place to Go’
In the thread, PM Modi emphasised on the fact that the CAA was only meant for people who have long faced persecution and have no place to go other than India.
“No Indian has anything to worry about,” he added.
Stressing on the importance of maintaining “peace, unity and brotherhood”, he further wrote, “It is my appeal to everyone to stay away from any sort of rumour mongering and falsehoods.”
His tweets come hours after the nation was shook by the violence meted out to the Jamia students a day ago. Shortly after, protests were held at police headquarters at ITO with a number of metro stations being shut.
‘Finally Campaigner in Chief Took Some Time Off’: Cong
Soon after Modi’s tweets, the official handle of Congress party took a dig at the PM stating, “ Finally the Campaigner in Chief took some time off from rumour mongering and spreading falsehoods to notice our country is burning.”
In videos circulated on Monday, police was seeing entering the university’s library and firing tear gas shells. Many were dragged out, while some were locked in the rooms.
At least 60 people, including students, policemen and firemen were injured in the violence, according to PTI. Many students were detained, but were released in the early hours of Monday.
The Jamia protests spurred a movement of protests countrywide, when many places were already protesting the CAA. Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) also witnessed violence, where the police damaged motorcycles and fired guns and tear gas. The police’s claim is that they were responding to a mob of unruly elements.
Ever since then, Banaras Hindu University, Maulana Azad National Urdu University, Hyderabad, TISS in Mumbai and IIT Kanpur, Madras and Chennai among others have seen students raising their voice against CAA and expressing their solidarity with Jamia students.
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