The All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) has planned a musical protest on December 12 to mark the ‘dark’ anniversary of the contentious Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019.
The AASU has dubbed the State-wide protest as ‘Gana Hunkaar’ (public cry) but voices against the “anti-indigenous” Act would be raised through traditional and folk musical instruments, leaders of the outfit said.
President Ram Nath Kovind on December 12, 2019, gave his assent to the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill that the Rajya Sabha had passed the previous day triggering protests across Assam and the adjoining States in the northeast.
Anger in Assam had been brewing since December 9, 2019, when the Lok Sabha had cleared the Bill. The protests took a violent turn two days later as mobs went on the rampage, destroying private and public property.
The police opened fire on mobs and five people were killed in the resultant melee.
“New Delhi imposed this anti-Assam legislation on us last year and barbarically tried to crush the people’s agitation through the police. Five innocent people, including a school student, were killed in the police firing on the protesters,” AASU president Dipanka Kumar Nath said.
“Apart from demanding the scrapping of the CAA, we will also seek justice the families of these five martyrs are yet to get,” he added.
In March, the Assam government claimed three people and not five had died in police firing. The State’s Parliamentary Affairs Minister Chandra Mohan Patowary told the 126-member Assembly that two were killed in attacks by miscreants.
The two were Dipanjol Das and Azizur Rahman. The three killed in firing are Ishwar Nayak, Dwijendra Panging and Sam Stafford, a 16-year-old school student.
A total of 430 anti-CAA protest-related cases were registered and 573 people were arrested across Assam. Of them, 384 got bail and 189 were in jail, the Minister had said.
Peasant rights activist Akhil Gogoi was arrested during the peak of the anti-CAA movement on charges of instigating rioters. He has been in jail since.
