Citizenship law protests banned

Police banned public gatherings in parts of India’s capital and other cities for a third day yesterday and cut internet services to counter growing protests against a new law that critics say marginalises Muslims.

Fourteen people have so far died during the protests, and more than 4000 have been detained, according to officials.

Thousands of protesters stood inside and on the steps of New Delhi’s Jama Masijd, one of India’s largest mosques, after Friday afternoon prayers. They waved Indian flags and shouted slogans against the government and the citizenship law, which opponents say threatens India’s secular democracy in favour of creating a Hindu state.

Police banned a proposed march from the mosque to an area near parliament and sprayed protesters with water cannon.

Much of the violence was in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, where protesters set fire to police posts and vehicles and hurled rocks at security forces.

A spokesman for the state government said another six people had died during clashes between demonstrators and police, raising the toll to 14.

The new law allows Hindus, Christians and other religious minorities who are in India illegally to become citizens if they can show they were persecuted because of their religion in Muslim-majority Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan. The law does not apply to Muslims.

In New Delhi, about 10,000 demonstrators outside Jamia Millia Islamia University collected signatures for a petition demanding that the law be scrapped.

A British colonial-era law banning the assembly of more than four people is in place in parts of the capital and several cities in Assam and Uttar Pradesh.