Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) students staged a protest against the passage of Citizenship (Amendment) Bill in the Lok Sabha and the implementation of National Register of Citizens (NRC) nationwide at midnight on December 9, 2019 outside the varsity campus. Many students burned copies of the bill and shouted slogans against it.
Several AMU students and teachers held a protest march on Friday, December 13, 2019 and handed two memorandums to authorities demanding the complete rollback of CAB.
Newsd spoke to one of the AMU students, Tazeen Junaid about the overall dispute and protest that is going on against the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB).
When Newsd asked about the stand of AMU students against the Citizenship Amendment Act, Tazeen said, “Citizenship Amendment Bill is Islamophobic in nature. The reason why the BJP introduced it and currently passed it as a law in India because they want to exterminate the Indian Muslim. In a press state that we have published, a hashtag is turning right now i.e., Muslims Lives Matter. It is against the principle of equality that no citizen shall be discriminated on the basis of his or her religion.”
Speaking over the support they are getting from varsity, she said, “We issued show cause notices as an ultimatum to the VC and to the Aligarh Muslim University Teacher Association (AMUTA) and also to the non-teaching staff. On Friday, AMUTA also took out a rally supporting us. Since no action has been taken against us so we think the administration is with us but we don’t have a formal statement of them but we do have a formal statement from Teacher Association that they are with us and they support our call.”
Women college students broke three hostel gates to join the protest. Did you face any admin action? She replied, “We broke 3 gates and we were around 100 girls which did this. After that, 50 girls were physically stopped by the wardens and by the guards which were there from joining the rally. But we did take out a rally, at that time we had around 50-60 students who march from the gate of IG hall which we broke to Bab-e-Syed, where Yogendra Yadav was speaking.”
“No official action has been taken as of here by the administration because when the girls went back to the hall, the provost said that what you did was the right thing to do, it was maybe against the rules but we will not take any action against you and we support you.”
The internet service was blocked since the midnight of December 12 by the district administration in Aligarh district of Uttar Pradesh.
Over the ban of internet service that how it has reduced the efficiency of the protest, she said, “It did affect us a lot. We instantly get cut off from other university campuses but we combated it through text messages and calling. But it did reduce the efficiency of movement quite a lot.”
“Last week, Amit Shah said that Indian Muslims have nothing to fear but if you go back, Amit Shah also said in the Parliament that no Christians, Sikhs, Hindus, Jains have to worry, he didn’t take the name of the Muslim community. Why didn’t they take the name of the Muslim community? Apparently, he forgot the 12% of the population of India.”
“Amit Shah has made both the statement completely contradictory”, she said.
“I want to assure you today to all brother-sister. No one needs to be scared. We will not discriminate. I assure you. We have no hatred towards Muslims. Do not create one. There is no connection of Indian Muslims with the bill” the home minister, Amit Shah said last week, as Lok Sabha passes Citizenship Amendment Bill.
“There should be a complete rollback of CAB, it should not become a law, it should not be implemented” she also said.
When asked about the future course of action against the bill, she replied and said, “As if now we are mobilizing the students and communities and demanding the complete rollback of CAB. And if the government would not agree to our demands then most probably we will boycott the implementation of CAB.”
