Anger over CAA, police action on Jamia spills over to many campuses in India, Mamata takes out huge rally

The morning after violence erupted in the national capital's New Friends Colony, the lines between anger at the police action and the protests over the CAA blurred into a unison of protest -- from Kerala to West Bengal and Telangana to Uttar Pradesh -- as the day progressed.

While thousands of students took to the streets demanding a probe into the use on Sunday of teargas inside the Jamia university's library as well as police entering the campus without permission from university authorities, politicians also made themselves heard.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee took out a massive rally in Kolkata, opposition leaders addressed a joint press conference in Delhi to say the entire country is opposed to the "unconstitutional law" and to condemn the violence against the Jamia students, as rivals UDF and LDF, in a rare show of camaraderie, protested jointly in the Kerala capital.

Congress leaders held a silent protest from 4pm-6pm in India Gate to press home their point.

"An attack on students is an attack on the soul of India," Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said.

As demonstrations over the act that will give citizenship to non-Muslim migrants from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh snowballed, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said violent protests on the legislation are "unfortunate and deeply distressing".

The amended citizenship law, he said on Twitter, illustrates India's centuries old culture of acceptance, harmony, compassion and brotherhood.

"We cannot allow groups with vested interest to divide us and create disturbance," he added.

Stepping in to quell the unrest, the Union Home Ministry asked states and Union Territories (UTs) to take all possible steps to check violence and ensure safety of life and properties.

The Supreme Court, which agreed to hear on Tuesday pleas alleging police atrocities on students holding protests against the act at the Aligarh Muslim University and the Jamia Millia Islamia, said it will not hear this issue in such an atmosphere of violence.

"The only thing we want is that the violence must stop," said a bench headed by Chief Justice S A Bobde.

Life was thrown out of gear in several places, including West Bengal. Highways and railway lines were blocked and incidents of arson and loot reported from many places in West Bengal. Trains between West Bengal and the Northeast came to a halt with the railways suspending all services to the northern region of the state, officials said.

Several Delhi University students boycotted exams and held a protest outside the Arts Faculty in North Campus to express their solidarity with the movement.

At ground zero of the student movement, a group of Jamia students stood shirtless in the bone-chilling cold of a December Delhi morning to protest the action against their colleagues on Sunday. Hundreds more gathered on the streets in an orderly manner with some students forming a human chain to manage traffic.

Several students were seen leaving for home but the anger simmered.

"We were inside the university when the police barged in. Around 20 policemen came from gate no 7 and 50 others came from the rear gate. We told them we were not involved in the violence. They didn't listen. They didn't even spare women," Khanzala, who suffered injuries to his legs and abdomen, said.

Fifty detained Jamia students were released early Monday but tension continued in the campus.

Jamia Vice Chancellor Najma Akhtar also supported the students, saying police entered the campus without permission.

"We will not tolerate police presence on campus. They scared our students with police brutality," she told reporters here, adding that the university will file an FIR on damage to property and police action on students. She also demanded a high level inquiry from the government.

In Lucknow's Nadwa College, students gathered in the hundreds shouting slogans like "Awaz do, hum ek hain" (call us we are all united) as police tried to control the situation. For a brief while, they hurled stones at the police who threw the missiles back over a campus steel gate.

In Hyderabad's Maulana Azad Urdu University, students held a protest march post midnight in solidarity with the Jamia students and demanded that their exams be postponed.

There were angry demonstrations at the Banaras Hindu University (BHU) in Varanasi and at the Jadavpur University in Kolkata with demands that the government take action against police "hooliganism".

Students from the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) in Kanpur, Kharagpur Madras and Bombay who usually stay away from agitations joined in too as did their counterparts from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bengaluru and Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad.

Students from the Mumbai University and the Tata Insitute of Social Sciences (TISS) protested on the streets shouting slogans such as "Shame on Delhi Police".

Students at Central University of Kerala, Kasargod and Pondicherry University boycotted classes. Others joining in included students from Patiala's Punjab University,  Patna University and Chennai's Loyola College.

The first to join the movement against the violence in Jamia were students from AMU where there were clashes with the police late night on Sunday in which at least 60 students were injured.

After the protest, the administration announced closure of the university till January 5 and students were asked to evacuate the hostels.

As videos from Sunday's violence inside Jamia circulated wildly on social media, many spoke out, including from Hollywood and Bollywood.

Hollywood star John Cusack was one of those who took to Twitter to air his views.

"Reports from Delhi are it was a war zone last night - Fascism  is not a joke - we use the word with the understanding it's deadly."

Filmmaker Anurag Kashyap, who had quit Twitter in August, returned on the microblogging site, saying he cannot stay "silent any longer".

"This government is clearly fascist... and it makes me angry to see voices that can actually make a difference stay quiet.." he tweeted.

Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) students joined their compatriots in Jamia outside the police headquarters at Delhi's ITO on Sunday night to protest the alleged police assault on students at the Jamia campus earlier in the day.

Opposition politicians and activists say the Citizenship Amendment Act, which was passed last week by Parliament, is an attempt to divide the country along religious lines as it grants citizenship to Hindu minorities from the three neighbouring countries. They say such a preference is unconstitutional.