Expressing solidarity with the nation-wide stir against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), hundreds of students from premier educational institutions like the Indian Institute of Management - Kozhikode (IIM-K) and the National Institute of Technology - Calicut (NIT-C) lined up for a mass protest rally in Kozhikode city on Thursday.
Student union leaders from Government Medical College, Kozhikode, led the demonstration, which exhorted the student community across the State to raise its voice against the Act and expose alleged attempts to create communal divide.
According to Medical College Students’ Union chairman Rahul Rajeev, the rally drew the participation of students from Farook College and JDT Group of Institutions.
“It was a democratic protest, and we had sought the participation of students from all institutions,” he said.
The protesters, including leaders of various college unions, alleged that the Sangh Parivar forces had been trying to implement the two-nation theory in the country, endorsing the ideologies of separatists. “Those who attempt to divide the nation in the name of religion should realise that we had leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Ambedkar who dreamt of a different India,” they said.
The rally, which began from Mananchira, culminated on the Kozhikode beach. Flaying the “hidden agenda” behind the Act, the students also staged a mime to sensitise the crowd to the need to come up with public campaigns against it.
Incidentally, it was for the first time that such a large group of students representing various institutions in Kozhikode district had come together against the Act. They also declared that agitations would be intensified on all campuses.
Lawyers protest
A section of lawyers and journalists too took out separate protest rallies in the city flaying the Act and the motive behind its “forceful implementation”.
The participants claimed that a majority of Indians were opposed to the Act, and that the Centre should consider the scope of revoking it respecting citizens’ sentiments.
