ISLAMABAD – Prime Minister Narendra Modi sought Sunday to reassure India’sMuslims as a wave of deadly protests against a new citizenship law put hisHindu nationalist government under pressure like never before.
At least 25 people have died in almost two weeks of demonstrations andviolence after Modi’s government passed the law criticised as anti-Muslim.More protests took place on Sunday.
Addressing party supporters in New Delhi — who cried “Modi! Modi!” at themention of the law — the 69-year-old said Muslims “don’t need to worry atall” provided they are genuine Indians.
“Muslims who are sons of the soil and whose ancestors are the children ofmother India need not to worry,” Modi told the crowd of thousands.
Accusing the main opposition Congress party of condoning the recentviolence by not condemning it, Modi said opponents were “spreading rumoursthat all Muslims will be sent to detention camps”.
“There are no detention centres. All these stories about detention centresare lies, lies and lies,” he said.
Modi also said that there had been “no discussion” about a nationwide“register of citizens”, which many Muslims in India fear is targeted mainlyat them.
Home Minister Amit Shah, Modi’s close ally, has said repeatedly that suchan exercise will take place, including in parliament aimed at removing all“infiltrators” from India.
This year such a register in Assam state left off 1.9 million people unableto prove they or their forebears were there before 1971. They now facepossible statelessness.
Assam has six functional detention centres holding more than 1,000 peoplein the northeastern state and plans another 11.
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The Home Ministry in June issued a “2019 Model Detention Manual” to states,asking them to set up camps in major entry points.Hindu nation
The demonstrations have been largely peaceful but protesters have alsohurled rocks and torched vehicles, while heavy-handed police tacticsincluding the Storming of a Delhi university a week ago have fuelled anger.
Tens of thousands of protesters gathered late Saturday in the southern cityof Hyderabad. Other protests took place on Sunday, including in Jaipur andMumbai. Another in favour of the law was held in Bangalore.
The law gives religious minority members — Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Parsis,Christians and Buddhists — from three neighbouring Islamic countries aneasier path to citizenship, but not if they are Muslim.
Islamic groups, the opposition and others at home and abroad fear thisforms part of Modi’s aim to marginalise India’s 200 million Muslims andremould the country as a Hindu nation, something he denies.
Authorities have imposed emergency laws, blocked internet access — a commontactic in India — and shut down shops in sensitive areas across the countryin an attempt to contain the unrest.
More than 7,500 people have either been detained under emergency laws orarrested for rioting, according to state officials, with 5,000 in UttarPradesh state alone where 17 people have been killed.
Some 500 people have also been injured in Uttar Pradesh including 263police, while two people were shot dead in the southern state of Karnatakaand six died in Assam in the northeast last week. – APP/AFP
