Violent clashes in Delhi; Japan PM cancels visit to India

Unstoppable clashes in Indian capital, Delhi between police and hundreds of university students has erupted over enactment of a new citizenship law that critics say undermines India’s secular foundations.

The worsened situation of the city has already led Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to cancel a planned visit to India from Sunday.

The new law offers a way to Indian citizenship for six minority religious groups from neighbouring Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan including Hindus and Christians, but not Muslims.

Police fired tear gas and used baton charges to disperse the large amount of students demonstrating at Jamia Millia Islamia University in New Delhi.

Protesters attacked cars in the capital, and several people were injured and taken to hospital.

Police barricades were knocked down and streets were strewn with shoes and broken bricks.

An official at the university dispensary said that more than 100 students had been brought in with injuries but all had been discharged.

Students said it was meant to be a peaceful protest, with them trying to go from Jamia University to Parliament Street to show their opposition to the legislation. But police pushed them back, which leads to clashes.

Two people were killed in India’s Assam state when police opened fire on mobs torching buildings and attacking railway stations in protest at the new citizenship rules signed into law on Thursday.

The violent anti-CAB protests in Assam put paid to the India- Japan annual summit Friday with the government announcing that PM Narendra Modi’s meeting with his counterpart Shinzo Abe in Guwahati had been deferred to a “mutually convenient date in the near future.”

Japan has stepped up infrastructure development work in Assam in recent years, which the two sides were expected to highlight during the summit.

Shinzo Abe had also planned to visit a memorial in the nearby state of Manipur where Japanese soldiers were killed in World War Two.

Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said both countries would decide on the appropriate timing for the visit although nothing has been decided yet.