This story is from December 23, 2019

Delhi: Cries of ‘Azadi’ in air at Nizamuddin Basti

Cries of “Azadi” and “Hindustan Zindabad” filled the lanes of Nizamuddin Basti on Sunday as hundreds turned up to protest against CAA and NRC.
Delhi: Cries of ‘Azadi’ in air at Nizamuddin Basti
Musafir Khana Park drew crowds from other areas too
NEW DELHI: Cries of “Azadi” and “Hindustan Zindabad” filled the lanes of Nizamuddin Basti on Sunday as hundreds turned up to protest against CAA and NRC.
A huge police contingent stood guard, armed with lathis and teargas guns.
Addressing the gathering, lawyer Colin Gonsalves went into the nitty gritty of CAA to reinforce his point that the new law was “unconstitutional".
Amid huge applause, former JNU student Umar Khalid called for a peaceful struggle and made the people take an oath of non-violence. He urged police to avoid resorting to violence against people and rued that human life had “become cheap”.
The Musafir Khana Park had a heavy presence of men, women and children alike. Many of them held placards with slogans against CAA and NRC. The public meeting, which took place next to Hazrat Inayat Khan Dargah, also drew crowds from other areas of the city after WhatsApp messages were circulated seeking maximum participation.
Earlier, Gonsalves claimed that the Centre’s alleged plan to keep people in detention centres was “against the UN convention on stateless people, which says that you can’t arrest them. UN will not allow anyone to be jailed like that. Even stateless people have a right to live — our Constitution says so under Article 21.The fight that has started from Jamia has now spread across the nation and you can see that it has people from all communities joining in”.

Filmmaker Rahul Roy, a former Jamia student himself, alleged that the university had been attacked because it was one educational institution that was connected directly with India’s freedom movement. “They are attacking everything that makes India,” he claimed.
As the crowd swelled, writer and comedian Varun Grover recited a poem against NRC, which was followed by the rendition of “Sarfaroshi ki Tamanna”. Several speakers asked the locals to avoid responding to “provocations”.
Supreme Court lawyer Sanjay Hedge said: “The Constitution is alive till we are alive and continue to live and follow it. The Constitution states that every person in the nation is equal. Then, why do you say that if you don’t have certain documents, then you are not an Indian?” .
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