Nude protests in Delhi as Citizenship Bill got Cabinet nod

Several organisations from Assam Monday staged protests, with some of the demonstrators stripping naked, outside Parliament against the central government's move to amend the Citizenship Amendment Bill.

Carrying placards and raising slogans, about 10 protesters belonging to the Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti from Assam stripped themselves naked to protest the controversial bill. Within no time, police swung into action and removed the protesters from the highly secured Vijay Chowk. Another group of people protested outside the Assam Bhavan in Chanakyapuri, showing the black flag and raising slogans.

Four Rajya Sabha members of the Congress, led by APCC president Ripun Borah, also staged a protest outside the main gate of Parliament against the bill. Carrying banners and raising slogans, the Congress MPs demanded that the bill should not be brought in Parliament.

The Union Cabinet Monday cleared the redrafted Citizenship Amendment Bill, which seeks to provide Indian citizenship to non-Muslims from Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The bill is expected to be tabled in the Lok Sabha Tuesday. The move came within hours of the presentation in the Lok Sabha of a report of the Joint Parliamentary Committee examining the bill that was first introduced in Parliament in 2016.

Large sections of people in Assam and other northeastern states have been protesting against the bill, saying it would nullify the 1985 Assam Accord under which any foreign national, irrespective of religion, who had entered the state after 1971 should be deported.

The fresh bill seeks to amend the Citizenship Act 1955 to grant Indian nationality to people from minority communities -- Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians -- from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan after six years of residence in India instead of 12 even if they don't possess any proper documentation. This was an election promise of the BJP in 2014.

Eight influential students' bodies of the Northeast, besides more than 40 socio-cultural organisations of Assam, have called an 11-hour 'bandh' Tuesday in protest against the central government's move to amend the Citizenship Act.

(With inputs from agencies.)