'Azaadi' from CAA, NRC is protestors' war cry in Delhi

"Azaadi" (freedom) remained the war cry for thousands of anti-citizenship law protestors who continued their demonstration on Monday at Delhi's Shaheen Bagh and outside Jamia Millia Islamia.

In the evening, around 1,500 to 2,000 protestors were on the ground at each of the two sites which have been protest venues for more than three weeks now.

Local residents and students stayed put at both the venues, chanting slogans like "Azaadi", "Inquilab Zindabad" and poems of revolution, as they also condemned the attack on JNU students and teachers on Sunday by masked goons.

Among the thousands outside Jamia's gate no. 7 was Mohammad Shuaib, a physically-challenged student who had come from Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh.

"My sister studies here. I have come here to join the ongoing protests against the CAA and NRC," Shuaib told PTI

Asked if he found it difficult to join the protest because of his disability, the 23-year-old student said, "For us, this (the protest) is no less than India's fight for freedom in 1947. We'll continue our fight till the government does not realise its mistake."

At Shaheen Bagh, a 17-year-old Delhi University student stood holding a placard that urged the government to repeal the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the proposed India-wide National Register of Citizens (NRC).

"This is the third time that I have come to Shaheen Bagh to join the protestors. I don't know why the government is not listening to the people who have been sitting here day and night for three weeks," the BA student said, wishing not to be identified.

"The law is discriminatory and changes the Constitution in a way the citizens have never wished for," the political science and history student told PTI.

Some members of the Communist Gadar Party of India (CGPI) were also present at the protest site in Shaheen Bagh holding banners against the CAA and the NRC and criticising "state-sponsored terror".

Thousands of people, including women and children, are protesting outside Jamia Millia Islamia and nearby Shaheen Bagh to oppose the CAA and the NRC.

Besides Delhi, protests have been witnessed across the country over the contentious law and have led to clashes at several places including Uttar Pradesh, where more than 20 people have died.

According to the amended law, members of Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian communities who have come from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan till December 31, 2014 and facing religious persecution there will not be treated as illegal immigrants but given Indian citizenship. The law excludes Muslims.