8 Detained For Drawing Anti-CAA Rangoli In Chennai, Opposition Slams Ruling AIADMK

Eight people, including five women, were detained briefly on Sunday when they staged an anti-CAA protest by drawing ‘kolams’ (rangoli), police said. The eight were picked up for holding the protest without permission and causing inconvenience to others, a senior police official said adding they were later let off.

On Sunday, the group of eight held the protest in the Besant Nagar locality in South Chennai. They used the ‘kolams’ to express opposition to the CAA and National Register of Citizens and National Population Register and raised slogans “No to NRC” and “No to NPR” before police took them into custody.

“We warned them and later let them off,” the police official added. Those detained alleged they were manhandled and their phones snatched by police.

Opposition DMK hit out at the AIADMK government for the police action, saying the detained persons were only exercising their right to protest. DMK President M K Stalin and party Lok Sabha MP government and said the police “has not even allowed the basic right under the Constitution” to voice dissent.

According to the amended Act, members of Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian communities who have come from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan till December 31, 2014 and face religious persecution there will not be treated as illegal immigrants but given Indian citizenship. President Ram Nath Kovind had given assent to the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019, turning it into an Act.

Last week, in a show of strength, DMK and its allies took out a huge protest rally against the amendment to the Citizenship Act and warned of intensifying the agitation by mobilising apolitical sections of society till the Centre withdrew the ‘draconian’ law. The DMK has been maintaining that the law was anti-Muslim and Sri Lankan Tamils.

Alleging that the ruling AIADMK tried to thwart the rally “by approaching the court,” he said the court, however, negated it and ruled there was no bar on holding the agitation.