‘Azadi’ slogans at protests amount to treason: Yogi
LUCKNOW: Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath on Wednesday warned anti-citizenship (Amendment) Act or CAA protesters against raising ‘Azadi’ slogans, saying that they were raised in Kashmir and amount to treason that attracts strict punishment.
Speaking at a Kanpur rally, the CM said, “In democracy, staging a peaceful protest is everyone’s right. One can give memorandums and protest peacefully. But I want to reiterate that if anyone resorts to violence, we would recover damages from them. And also, I would like to state that raising ‘azadi’ slogans that were raised in Kashmir, would come under treason and attract strict punishment. This will not be tolerated.” The CAA was passed last month to fast-track the citizenship process for non-muslims, who have entered India from Afghanistan,
Pakistan, and Bangladesh before 2015, and triggered protests across the country.
Opponents of the CAA insist it is discriminatory and unconstitutional as it leaves out Muslims and links faith to citizenship in a secular country.
They say it could result in the expulsion or detentions of the Muslims unable to provide the documentation if the law is seen in the context of a proposed pan-india National Register of Citizens (NRC). A process to identify undocumented immigrants in Assam led to the exclusion of around 2 million people from the NRC last year.
Muslim women have been staging sit-in protests in Lucknow’s Clock Tower and Gomti Nagar against the CAA and the NRC on the lines of similar protests in Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh.
Adityanath said the protesters have now started bringing their women and children to stage sit-ins fearing police action.
“Now, they do not even have enough courage left in them to come out and agitate openly for they know if they resort to violence their properties would be seized. That is why they have now devised a new method of getting their women and children to stage sit-ins.”