Matrix Report
After the controversial Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) passed by the Rajya Sabha in India, the All Assam Student Union launched protests in various cities of the state. These protests are mainly due to Bill’s underlying anti-Muslim connotation. The CAB provides citizenship to undocumented immigrants that are persecuted minorities in countries such as Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan, except Muslims.
Protests ensued by the population of Assam, leading to a huge number of 175 arrests and 4000 detentions in the region. The Indian Police killed 4 of the protesters in their attempts to disperse the crowd. As a consequence, the Internet was shut down in several areas of the State, and a curfew was imposed.
This is just a quantitative representation of the Indian brutality in Assam. However, stories followed these numbers, where one student, who did not participate in the protests, was sitting in his university’s library, was dragged outside and beaten by the police. Several students of the Jamia Milia Islamic University were detained after the police stormed the campus, firing tear gas. 60 students were taken to Al-Shifa Hospital with injuries after getting beat up by the police. After these protests, two functionaries of the BJP government have given up their positions, stating that the Bill was against the people, and politics does not allow you to go against the people.
The Assam police were unable to contain the protests. According to DG Assam Police Mahanta said, “We failed to anticipate that the protesters will get so aggressive and that’s why we were unable to contain the violent protests at an early stage but later on we came down heavily and it has been contained now.” They had to resort to violent methods of dispersing the crowd. The Indian Police Forces’ retaliation to the protests has been nothing but cowardly. They have made excuses with regards to the use of force by the protesters.
Guwahati saw the biggest protests in the Assam region. These protests were followed by extreme retaliation, where police used guns to push the protesters back. 2 protesters were killed, while 25 injured with bullet wounds.
The Indian brutality, coupled with the anti-Muslim rhetoric and baseless accusations on the population of Assam about armed protesters have been detrimental to the situation in the region. After the Kashmir issue, this is the second time the BJP Government has been able to get away with cruelty on its own population.
