CAA row: Pondicherry University Students' Council calls for boycott of convocation to be addressed by President

Pondicherry University Students' Council on Friday urged the students not to participate in convocation to be addressed by President Ram Nath Kovind in a bid to show their solidarity with the students facing repression across the country.

"PU Students' Council was contacted to facilitate the convocation function to be attended by the President of India on December 23 ... In light of ongoing protest against CAA and NRC, the council decides to boycott the event," the council president Parichay Yadav said in a letter.

He added: "We urge the students not to participate in the event as a gesture of solidarity with the students facing state repression and as an act of registering our dissent on implementing this unconstitutional legislation."

Protests, led by students and locals, have escalated in the national capital and across the country demanding the scrapping of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, which seeks to grant citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Parsis, Buddhists, and Christians, fleeing religious persecution from Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh, who came to India.