MIT fraternity backs student protests against CAA
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, December 26
Students and staff of world-renowned Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) on Thursday joined the chorus for withdrawal of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and National Register of Citizens with 135 members of the institute’s teaching community, students, alumni and affiliates signing a statement, expressing solidarity with the ongoing student protests in India.
The sheer diversity of students and citizens who have taken to the streets is a testament to secular foundation of the country which is under imminent threat. We join their demand for withdrawal of CAA and NRC. Signatories
“We stand in solidarity with the peaceful and historic student protests across nearly 100 campuses in India against the passing of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 (CAA). We strongly condemn the increasingly violent suppression of these citizens’ protests at Aligarh Muslim University, Jamia Millia Islamia University, Jama Masjid, Mangaluru, and across several cities in Uttar Pradesh that have left several dead,” the opening part of the MIT statement read. It praised the “courage and dynamism with which the students and ordinary citizens continue their protest in the face of baton charges, police detentions and imposition of Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, a colonial-era law used by the state to prevent public gathering of more than four persons”.
The signatories said by introducing religion as a marker for communities which would receive such state protection, the CAA violated Article 14 of the Indian Constitution that explicitly guaranteed equality to all.
