Over 300 students and citizens staged a protest on the Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU) campus on Monday evening to express solidarity with the students of Jamia Millia Islamia who faced police action for agitating against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).
Students from various SPPU-affiliated colleges and members of organisations such as the National Students Union of India (NSUI), the Students Federation of India (SFI) and the Yuvak Kranti Dal took part in the protest.
Holding placards with message such as 'fascism down, down,' Don't sell our Country', One Nation, All Religion' students shouted slogans and condemned the "brutality" unleashed by the Delhi Police on the protesting students.
"The CAA and NRC (National Register of Citizens) will adversely affect the country in the long run and it is the collective responsibility of all of us to stop this," said Mohammad Bilal, an alumnus of the Delhi-based Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) university who is currently working in Pune.
Bilal said since he can not go to Delhi to support the protesting students, he came to the SPPU campus to take part in the stir and express solidarity with them.
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He said he is hearing a lot of horrific accounts of police brutalities against the protesting students.
Javed Talha, another alumnus from the Delhi based university, said, "If you look at the fabric of the country and if you keep pulling the threads, the time will come that cloth will vanish."
A student said their anger is also directed against those in power who are giving instructions to the police to unleash brutalities on students.
"Prime Minister Narendra Modi went to America some days back. He told the Indian Diaspora there that everything is good in the country. See the condition of the country where students are being attacked," he rued.
Satish Gore, another SPPU student, said brutalities on students in the national capital should stop immediately.
"We also demand that those who unleashed brutalities and attacked students be punished," he said.
Gore demanded withdrawal of the CAA and the NRC.
Sandip Barve of the Yuvak Kranti Dal said time has come for students from all universities to come together to protest against the BJP government.
Students said they are going to submit a memorandum, listing their demands, to the Pune district collector on Tuesday.
Earlier in the day, Kannan Gopinathan, a former IAS, too, posted a tweet asking people to join the protest.
"Savitribai Phule University Pune stands in solidarity with Jamia today at 7 pm. Be there Punekars," Gopinathan tweeted.
Gopinathan hit headlines when he quit the elite civil service over "denial of freedom of expression" to the people of Jammu and Kashmir following scrapping of Article 370 in August.
The JMI university had turned into a battlefield on Sunday as police entered the campus and also used force following protest against the CAA, which led to violence and arson.
The first to join the movement against the violence in JMI were students from the Aligarh University University (AMU) where there were clashes with the police late night on Sunday in which at least 60 students were injured.
The new act grants citizenship to religiously persecuted non-Muslim refugees who have come to India till December 31, 2014 from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan.
CAA's opponents say the new law is discriminatory and goes against the tenets of the Constitution.
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