Anti-CAA protestors take mass pledge at India Gate to defend Constitution

Slogans like "kagaz nahi dikhayenge" and "hum dekhenge" by scores of protesters reverberated on Wednesday at India Gate here where people took a mass pledge to "defend the Constitution" by opposing the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).

The number of protesters as well as visitors, who were out to celebrate the New Year on a sunny day, led to a massive crowd around the iconic monument, causing the traffic to virtually crawl in adjoining areas.

Celebrating the new year by "reading the preamble", the protesters including students from various universities then read out the pledge that they will "not show any document", referring to the controversial National Register of Citizens (NRC) and National Population Register (NPR).

"We, today on 1st January 2020, reiterate our resolve to give ourselves a society that will be free of oppressors and take oath to not show any document to prove our citizenship and we will observe and propagate complete non-cooperation with anti-constitution and anti-India forces.

"We the people of India, are sovereign as we give ourselves the constitution. No government elected by us on the basis of this constitution has the right to turn around and ask the people to 'prove' our citizenship on the basis of a divisive diabolical agenda trampling upon the very core of our constitution," the protesters said while reading the pledge.

There was heavy police deployment to avoid any untoward incident.

"We in no way are going to discriminate (against) our fellow people on the basis of gender, race, colour, language, sex, caste or religion. Equality and Justice, politically, socially and culturally is what we want to assure each other," former JNU Students Union President N Sai Balaji said.

Several protesters waved the national flag while others displayed placards with creative slogans against the new law and chanted the slogan "Aazadi".

"Our new year resolution is to defend the constitution. They cannot keep doing whatever they want to, there have to be some norms followed and the basic structure of the country cannot be demolished," said Sarthak Chaubey, a Jamia Millia Islamia student.