Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi Protest: The protest march had started from the university.
The opposition parties came together today against the alleged police excesses at the Jamia Millia Islamia and the new citizenship law, which had triggered countrywide protests. The opposition has demanded a judicial inquiry into the police action at the university, pointing out that the Delhi police were taking orders from the BJP. They also said they would meet President Ram Nath Kovind tomorrow afternoon.
Three Chief Ministers -- Bangal's Mamata Banerjee, Kerala's Pinarayi Vijayan and Punjab's Amarinder Singh -- have already declared that they would not allow the implementation of the citizenship law and the national registry of citizens in their states.
In Delhi, the Congress, the CPI, the CPM, Lalu Yadav's Rashtriya Janata Dal and Sharad Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party aligned themselves with the students of Jamia Milia Islamia, whose protests against the citizenship law yesterday culminated in violence. The alleged police excesses that followed, triggered a rash of protests in campuses across the country that went on overnight and is continuing.
After the evening's violence in Delhi, during which a pitched battle took place between the protesters and the police and buses and two-wheelers were burnt, the police had barged into the Jamia campus without permission, rounded up and detained around 100 students.
The university said they had entered illegally without permission and assaulted the staff and students. The students alleged that many of them picked up from the library. Videos surfaced in social media showing signs of struggle in toilets, where unconscious students lay.
Today, Congress's Ghulam Nabi Azad pointed out that the Delhi Police is not under the control of the Delhi government but the Union Home Ministry, indicating that they were taking orders from the ruling BJP.
"When the Jamia vice Chancellor and the Proctor withheld their permission for them to enter the university, how could they barge in? The Delhi Police are under the Central government, meaning the BJP," he said.
Huge protests are progress in Bengal and Kerala, led by the Chief Ministers. Kerala witnessed unprecedented scenes as the ruling Left-led LDF and the opposition, Congress-led UDF came together to protest against the Central law. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and leader of opposition Ramesh Chennithala led the protests.
In Kolkata, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee addressed a huge public meeting, where she promised to continue the agitation against the citizenship law and the National Registry of Citizens until they are "withdrawn".