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Indian Students Decry Police as Citizenship Protests Grow

Associated Press

   NEW DELHI - Indian student protests that turned into violent clashes
   with police galvanized nationwide opposition on Tuesday to a new law
   that provides a path to citizenship for non-Muslim migrants who entered
   the country illegally from several neighboring countries.

   Police fired tear gas in the Seelampur area of New Delhi to push back
   protesters who burned a police booth and two motorbikes after throwing
   stones and swarming barricades.

   Roads leading to the Muslim-majority neighborhood were strewn with
   stones, tear gas canisters and shards of broken glass.

   "We are protesting against the new citizenship law. They are saying if
   you don't have any proof (of citizenship) they will send us out of
   India," said 15-year-old Mohammad Shehzad.

   Protests against the law were also reported in the states of West
   Bengal, Kerala, Karnataka and elsewhere. On Sunday, a march by students
   at New Delhi's Jamia Millia Islamia University descended into chaos
   when demonstrators set three buses on fire. Police responded with
   rubber bullets and tear gas. Videos showed officers running after
   unarmed protesters and beating them with wooden sticks.

   Hanjala Mojibi, an English major at the predominantly Muslim school,
   said that when he and others saw police enter the campus, they walked
   toward them with their hands up to indicate their protest was
   nonviolent.

   "The police made all 15 of us kneel and started beating us. They used
   lots of abusive words. One of them removed my prescription glasses,
   threw (them) on the ground, broke them and told me to look down,"
   Mojibi said at a news conference in tears.

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