With Sunday the fifth consecutive day of protests across the country against a new citizenship law, people used social media platforms to vent their anger with #ResignAmitShah trending on Twitter.
As the peaceful protest turned violent in southeast Delhi’s Jamia Millia Islamia University, netizens questioned India’s federal Home Minister Amit Shah’s silence on the issue and pushed for his resignation.
Authorities said more than 100 students and 35 police personnel were injured in the clashes.
“About 4,000 people were protesting and police did what they did to disperse them when the crowd burnt buses", senior police officer Chinmoy Biswal told the media. “If it had been a peaceful mob it would have been dispersed peacefully".
Furious Twitter users described the police move to storm the campus of the university to confront protesters as undemocratic.
In the wake of Sunday's violence, the university has been shut down until 5 January 2020. The government of the national capital has ordered the closure of schools in neighbouring areas on Monday as a precautionary measure.
According to India’s new citizenship law, persecuted non-Muslim minorities from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, living as immigrants in India, can now acquire Indian citizenship.
The bill has been dubbed “undemocratic” and discriminatory towards Muslims by Indian opposition parties. However, these allegations were refuted by Amit Shah in Parliament.