Uttar Pradesh: Mobile internet services in Aligarh now restored

Mobile internet services have been restored in Aligarh on Saturday, February 29. The services were suspended till February 28, following clashes over CAA on February 23. Clashes broke out between anti-CAA protestors and the police in the old city area following incidents of arson and stone-pelting on late Sunday afternoon.

Speaking to the media, Aligarh District Magistrate Chandra Bhushan Singh said, "Mobile internet services have been restored in Aligarh. It was suspended to maintain law and order situation in the area."

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The police had fired teargas shells to disperse the mob indulging in vandalisation of property and stones pelting at security personnel in the upper Kot area of the Kotwali police station, said police sources. There were a few reports of injuries but the exact number of those injured in clashes is yet to ascertain, police sources added. PV Ramasastry, ADG Law and Order, had said that the stone-pelting started following rumours that the police were arresting protestors. 

On February 23, people protesting against the CAA started pelting stones at the police following which security personnel fired tear gas shells, the District Magistrate had said. "Protestors pelted stones at police vehicles so the police had to resort to teargas to disperse them."  

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Anti-CAA protest in Aligarh

Reports of brick-batting, arson were still coming in from a spot where some women protestors were holding a dharna since February 22 on the Mohamed Ali Road leading to the Kotwali police station with police trying to evict the protestors from there, police said.

The clashes broke out shortly after a Bhim Army-led march by hundreds of anti-CAA protesters, heading to the district collectorate, was stopped midway by police and Rapid Action Force jawans. Stopped by police, the protesters, however, headed towards the Eidgah area in the city where another group of anti-CAA women protestors had been holding an indefinite dharna for the past three weeks.

As the protestors were stopped by police from moving ahead after they crossed over the Katpula Bridge in the old city, they decided to join the women protesters sitting in the Eidgah area. The protesters had taken out the march on a call by Bhim Army chief Chandra Shekhar. Shops in some areas near Kotwali had downed their shutters.

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