Hundreds of people gathered outside Sabarmati Ashram in the city on Tuesday evening and lodged their protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC) and also expressed their solidarity with students of Jamia Millia University who faced brutal police assault in Delhi.
Among the protesters were independent MLA Jignesh Mevani, Congress MLA Naushad Solanki, party's chief spokesperson Manish Doshi and people from civil society that included activists and a large number of students. The protest had police permission which lasted peacefully. The protesters shouted slogans against NRC and CAA while demanding to take these laws back.
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"These laws are not only discriminatory but also against the constitution. These laws will put even Britishers to shame. These laws have been planned by Narendra Modi and Amit Shah to turn Muslims into a neo-untouchables. We must protest it so that they take them back. This is against the democratic values of our country," Mevani told reporters.
"These two laws together are so potent that they will jeopardize the democratic principles of the nation. In our country, a large number of migrants don't have proper documents to prove their identity. There are crores of people who can't prove it. It has to be opposed as it is nothing but votes bank politics," said Chirantan Shah, one of the protesters.
Akash Oza, another protester said, "We have always been a secular country. So, why should we bring a law that discriminates on the basis of religion? Why to give citizenship to persecuted Hindus and not Rohingya Muslims. CAA is a very dangerous precedent." There were hundreds of students from the Indian Institute of Management, CEPT, MICA, National Institute of Design among other institutes.
