Protestors demonstrate against the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) in Guwahati, India, Dec. 11, 2019. The upper house of Indian parliament, or Rajya Sabha, passed the controversial Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) Wednesday evening, officials said. Photo:Xinhua

India and Japan's leaders cancelled Friday a planned summit due to deadly protests in the northeast triggered by anger over a new law that will potentially grant citizenship to huge numbers of immigrants.

Abe had announced plans to visit India from Sunday to Tuesday for talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

According to reports in the Indian press, Modi and Abe were due to meet in the northeastern city of Guwahati in Assam state - the epicenter of the protests of recent days.

They were then slated to visit a new Peace Museum in Manipur, another northeastern state.

But Abe is rethinking the visit "because security is deteriorating there," public broadcaster NHK said, adding that Tokyo would make a formal announcement later Friday.

Thousands of protestors staged fresh demonstrations meanwhile following several days of running battles with riot police that have left the streets of the region littered with burnt-out vehicles, rocks and other debris.

Other smaller demonstrations took place elsewhere including in the capital New Delhi, in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's home state of Gujarat, in Maharashtra in central India, in Karnataka in the south and northern Punjab.

Modi and his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe had reportedly been due to meet in Guwahati, the main city in the state of Assam and the epicentre of the protests, from Sunday.

Without saying why, India said that both sides had "decided to defer the visit", while Tokyo said the move followed "a report from the Indian side about the situation there."

The US State Department on Thursday urged India to "protect the rights of its religious minorities," according to Bloomberg