Fresh clashes between Indian police and demonstrators erupted yesterday after more than a week of deadly unrest triggered by a citizenship law seen as anti-Muslim.
Three protesters on Thursday were shot dead, taking the death toll to nine in the wave of anger that is emerging as a major challenge to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The law making it easier for persecuted minorities from three neighboring nations to get citizenship, but not if they are Muslims, has stoked fears that Modi wants to remould India as a Hindu nation, which he denies.
Photo: AFP
Tens of thousands on Thursday filled the streets nationwide, with violence erupting in several places, including Lucknow, Mangaluru and Modi’s home state of Gujarat.
In Mangaluru, security forces opened fire on a crowd of about 200 people after they ignored orders to disperse, killing two people, police spokesman Qadir Shah said.
Four others were taken to hospital with gunshot wounds.
Photo: AFP
“They marched toward the busiest area of Mangaluru. This led to [a] lathi [big, wooden stick] charge. Then the tear gas was fired. When the protesters still didn’t stop, the police had to open fire,” the spokesman said.
Another protester succumbed to gunshot injuries in Lucknow, the capital of India’s most populous state Uttar Pradesh, said a doctor, who did not want to be named, after vehicles and a police post were set on fire.
Police denied opening fire in the city, which is home to a large Muslim minority, but the father of the victim told the Times of India that his son was shot after getting caught in a crowd of protesters while out to buy groceries.
Fresh clashes erupted in Lucknow yesterday when police halted a few hundred people on their way to a planned protest, with security forces firing tear gas and charging with batons, a reporter said.
Elsewhere, there were no major incidents, although police bundled hundreds of people onto buses in Delhi and Bengaluru after they defied bans on assembly, including a prominent rights advocate and a renowned historian.
The protests have in places seen demonstrators hurl rocks at security forces and set fire to vehicles, while alleged police brutality has fueled the anger.
The authorities have scrambled to contain the situation, imposing emergency laws, blocking Internet access, and shutting down shops and restaurants in sensitive areas.
In Uttar Pradesh, mobile Internet and text-messaging services were cut in several areas.
In an editorial, the Indian Express yesterday said that the government must do all it can “to keep the peace, but in doing so the world’s largest democracy cannot look like it cannot accommodate its young who disagree, it cannot afford to signal that it is so ill at ease with itself.”
“India risks a lot if it begins to be seen as a place where the dissenter’s mind is not without fear,” it said.
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