Hyderabad: Protesters asked to gear up for long battle

Hyderabad: Ms Sara Mathews, city convener of Alliance against CAA, NPR and NRC, said, “we have to prepare for a protracted battle to protect the constitutional rights of citizens. We should adopt various ways and means to prolong the ongoing battle against CAA, NPR and NRC.”

She made this observation while addressing students of Maulana Azad National Urdu University (MANUU).

Ms Mathews said foreign kingdoms invaded India many times and mostly “we failed to defend our boundaries due to wrong strategic approaches adopted by our forces. Likewise, we never attacked any dynasty, because India was rich with full of resources and our people did not want to step out of the comfort zone. If we do not leave our comfort zone and fail to adopt a wise strategy, then we will lose our fight against criminal ideologists. We need to explore changing methods.”

She said the fight against CAA, NPR and NRC is not a struggle of only Muslims as other communities will also be affected once NRC is implemented. The most affected communities will Muslims, minorities and dalits.

She pointed out that initially Mr Amit Shah excluded Muslims and now he does not mention about Christians while detailing about the communities who will get citizenships, which means they will deprive the communities one after another community. Woman activist Ms Khalida Parveen said that this was a struggle of minorities, dalits, poor and women. Women and students have shown a direction for a movement against CAA, NPR and NRC. She condemned the fresh police brutal attack against students of Jamia Millia Islamia in which dozens of students have been severely injured.

She said “we are apologetic that in Telangana we could not demonstrate like Shaheen Bagh. We also aspire to demonstrate here. We try daily to express our feelings, but the police do not allow us to conduct even peaceful protests. We are not afraid of criminal cases.”

Mr Shaik Umer Farooq Quadri, President Students Union MANUU, welcomed the gathering. Students staged a drama, read poetry and sang songs.