Guwahati: Amid the demand for repealing the controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), 2019, a protest rally was held in Guwahati, Assam on Saturday in memory of those who
lost their lives during the anti-CAA stir last year.
Five martyrs -- Sam Stafford, Dipanjal Das, Ishwar Nayak, Abdul
Alim and Dwijendra Panging -- lost their lives during the protests last
year. The All Assam Student's Union (AASU) organised a shraddhanjali (tribute)
programme in Hatigaon High School and Digholipukhuri area of the city where leaders of
the student organisation, artistes, civil society and hundreds of students
paid rich tributes by lighting earthen lamps in front of their portraits.
After that, they staged a protest at the Rotary Club in memory of the
martyrs.
Speaking
to the media, Ajit Kumar Bhuyan, Rajya Sabha MP from Assam, said, "The people of
Assam have been protesting peacefully against the draconian law known as CAA
for a long time."
He
further said, "This government did not even declare our five youths as martyrs who were killed in police action during the protest. We have demanded justice
and investigation for them but the government did not do that either and that
is why we called this government murderer. They have killed our five youths."
Apart from Bhuyan, Soneshwar Norah, Manjit Mahanta, and
more than 50 students also joined the protest rally at the Guwahati Rotary Club.
The
anti-CAA protests turned violent across Assam on December 11 last year after
the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 was passed in Rajya Sabha despite
widespread protests across the Northeast region.
However,
the protests were stopped because of the novel coronavirus outbreak in March
this year. The protesters have been continuously stating that they will keep on
agitating until and unless the government repeals the Act.
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