E-Paper
Protest by Assamese against CAA in Pune cancelled at the last minute after police withdraw permission to hold it
The CAA, which was recently passed in the Parliament, has generated anger amongst the Assamese based in the city as they call the Act unconstitutional.
A protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), organised by Luit, the Assamese Society in Pune, outside the Fergusson College gate on Sunday at 4pm, was cancelled a day before the event after the Pune police withdrew its permission to stage it.
The CAA, which was recently passed in the Parliament, has generated anger amongst the Assamese based in the city as they call the Act unconstitutional.
“Given how the protests against CAA have turned out in other parts of the country, it could have caused a potential law and order situation in the city as well, if we had allowed the protest to take place. To avoid the situation, the permission was denied as till now, the city has not faced any violence due to CAA,” said senior police inspector Dipak Lagad of the Deccan police station.
Bidyut Saikia, who is the main organiser of the protest and movement in the city, said, “We had all the required permissions and letter from the Pune police for Sunday’s protest, but suddenly on Saturday night we were told that the protest should be stopped. When we contacted the police officials concerned, they told us that they were under pressure from ‘upper level officials’, to keep the law and order situation in place and hence, the permission was denied. We are now helpless as the police and government, both are trying to stop us from demonstrating against the Act, which is our constitutional right.”
Another Assam resident based in Pune, Rupam Dutta, said, “After we came to know that the protest has been cancelled by the police, our community is even more irate. If a group of citizens want to peacefully protest with all the required permissions, why is the police stopping us? We have appealed to all our people to not come to the protest spot as police will take action against the protesters. Our people are already suffering a lot in Assam, we don’t want the same situation to happen here too.”
