9 NE varsity students call for 'total shutdown' of institutes on Wednesday

Guwahati, Jan 21 (PTI) Students unions of nine universities across the Northeastern region have called for a "total shutdown" of all varsities and colleges on Wednesday in view of the Supreme Court hearing on the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA).

The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear on Wednesday a batch of pleas seeking to examine the constitutional validity of the contentious CAA.

"We, the students' fraternity of North Eastern universities, declare total shutdown of all the universities and colleges in the region on the occasion of hearing of the unconstitutional and contentious Citizenship Amendment Act in the Supreme Court," a joint appeal said on Tuesday.

Students of six universities of Assam and one each of Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland have called for the protest. Simultaneously, the Cotton University Students Union has called for a mass protest from 10 AM to 5 PM inside the campus and appealed the general public to join them.

A bench, comprising Chief Justice S A Bobde and Justices S Abdul Nazeer and Sanjiv Khanna, which had issued notice to the Centre on various pleas, is likely to hear 132 petitions, including those filed by the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), Congress leader Jairam Ramesh and All Assam Students' Union (AASU) on Wednesday.

The apex court had on January 9 refused to entertain an appeal praying that the CAA be declared constitutional, saying the country is going through difficult times and there is so much violence that endeavour should be for peace.

The CAA seeks to provide Indian citizenship to Hindus, Jains, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Parsis entering India on or before December 31, 2014 from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan after five years of residence here.

Meanwhile, protests against the Act continued across various places in Assam on Tuesday. Thousands of people came out to protest against the Act in Tinsukia, Borguri, Behali, Narayanpur, Doom Dooma, Jorhat, Morigaon, Nagaon, Tezpur, Silapathar and Dhemaji. PTI

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