Uneasy calm in northeast, anti-citizenship law protests singe

Protests against the new Citizenship law showed signs of ebbing away in Assam and elsewhere in the northeast on Friday with relaxation of curfew but parts of neighbouring West Bengal were in throes of violence as agitators vandalised public property and clashed with police.

Curfew was relaxed in Assam's Dibrugarh and Meghalaya capital Shillong, but the ripple effect of anger over the hugely divisive law was felt in West Bengal where Beldanga railway station complex was set ablaze in Murshidabad district and RPF personnel were assaulted.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, one of the foremost opposition voices against the citizenship act and national register of citizens (NRC), declared the amended law will not be implemented in West Bengal.

After Punjab, West Bengal and Kerala, Madhya Pradesh also appeared set to reject the amended act, with Chief Minister Kamal Nath asserting in New Delhi that it was part of the Centre's "politics of distractions" to deflect people's attention from economic slowdown.

"The stand of the Congress in any law that divides society will be the stand of the MP govt," he said when asked if like West Bengal and Kerala, the Madhya Pradesh government too would also reject the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill that was signed into law by President Ramnath Kovind on Thursday.

Nath's Chhattisgarh counterpart Bhupesh Baghel shared his view.

However, a top Union Home Ministry official said in the national capital that state governments have no power to reject the law as it was enacted under the Union List of the 7th Schedule of the Constitution.

"The states have no powers to deny implementation of a central law which is in the Union List," the top home ministry official said.

After two senior Bangladesh ministers Foreign Minister A K Abdul Momen and Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan