Addressing an outreach programme in Lucknow, the capital of northern Uttar Pradesh, federal Home Minister Amit Shah sharpened his attack against students at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi. Shah was referring to the 2016 incident at the University, in which a former student leader Kanhaiya Kumar was charged with sedition charges, allegedly for chanting anti-India slogans.
“Anti-India slogans were chanted in JNU, isn’t it to divide India in thousand pieces,” Shah asked while attending the rally on Tuesday.
“Those who would chant slogans against Bharat ma (mother India), I will put them behind bars,” said Shah, who is also in-charge of the Delhi Police.
The statement triggered sharp responses on twitterati, who asked the minister to mind the sluggish economy first.
— Aqueleema (@Aque_leema) January 21, 2020
— Saif Ali (@thereal_gazi) January 21, 2020
But others agreed with Shah.
— Gaurav Sharma (@gauravishu) January 21, 2020
— Sasmita Mahapatra (@SM49142278) January 21, 2020
JNU witnessed violence in early January, when unidentified masked men and women entered the campus, where students, teachers and staff were brutally attacked.
The attack on a section of students, who have been protesting against a fee hike for the last months of 2019, triggered wide condemnation across the country.
Shah, who handed over BJP Chief’s position to Jagat Prakash Nadda on 20 January, reiterated that the CAA would not be withdrawn despite continuing protests.
"Let me say this here and now, this law will not be withdrawn, no matter who protests... We are not scared of opposition, we were born in it," asserted Shah.
The controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) seeks to grant citizenship to illegal immigrants from three neighbouring Islamic countries, except Muslims. While Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had termed the law that “manifests India’s ethos of harmony and compassion, his detractors felt it went against the provisions of Indian Constitution as also discriminatory on a religious basis.
