Shot fired at protest against citizenship law; one wounded

Source:Reuters Published: 2020/1/30 23:53:40

Indian women take part in a protest against India's controversial new citizenship law in New Delhi, India, on Jan. 29, 2020. The protest is part of ongoing large protests that have been going on here for the past more than a month against the new citizenship law passed by the government led by Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). (Xinhua/Javed Dar)

 

An unidentified man fired at a protest against India's new citizenship law near a university in Delhi on Thursday, wounding one person, witnesses said, the first such incident in the capital city during more than a month of demonstrations.

Witnesses said the man holding a gun shouted slogans against the protesters near Jamia Millia Islamia University, before firing at them.

"The police stood nearby," Ahmed Zahir, a witness, told Reuters.

A Reuters photograph showed the man, dressed in a black jacket and brandishing a single-barrel weapon, standing meters away from dozens of policemen deployed outside the university, where protesters had gathered for a march.

Police said they had ­subsequently detained the gunman.

Protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act, which fast-tracks Indian citizenship for non-Muslim minorities from three neighbouring countries, have flared since December.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government insists the law is required to help ­persecuted minorities who fled to India before 2015 from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

But protesters insist the law, and a proposed national register for citizens, discriminates against the country's Muslim minority and violates India's secular constitution.



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