Million March: Tens of thousands take to Hyderabad streets against citizenship law

Over one hundred thousand protesters, many carrying the Indian tricolour flag, took part in a peaceful march in the southern city of Hyderabad on Saturday, chanting slogans against the contentious citizenship amendment act, the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and the National Population Register (NPR).

The protest, dubbed the ‘Million March’, was organised by an umbrella group of Muslim and civil society organisations. More than 40 percent of Hyderabad's estimated population of nearly 7 million are Muslims.

On the busy road from Masab Tank to the Dharna Chowk, the protesters travelled in cars, two-wheelers and by walk, raising slogans, including against the CAA.

Some protesters distributed pamphlets which said the CAA discriminated against Muslims.

Demonstrators were still pouring into the protest site late on Saturday afternoon, according to a Reuters witness, despite police saying no march would be allowed and that permission had only been granted for a 1,000-person gathering.

The central government has faced weeks of acrimonious and, at times, violent protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which was passed in December.

The Hyderabad protesters held placards with slogans including "Withdraw CAA immediately," and "India's only religion in Secularism."

The Reuters witness said the protest remained peaceful, and estimated that more than one hundred thousand people were in attendance.

The new law eases the path for non-Muslim minorities from the neighbouring Muslim-majority nations of Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan to gain Indian citizenship. But, if combined with a proposed national register of citizens, critics of the CAA fear it will discriminate against minority Muslims in India and chip away at India's secular constitution.

The central government maintains the new law is necessary to help minorities facing persecution in Muslim-majority nations, and it has called the pan-India protests politically motivated.

At least 25 people have been killed in protest-related clashes with police since early December.

Elsewhere, protests against the CAA also went ahead in several other Indian cities on Saturday with hundreds turning out for protests in cities of Karnataka.

Hundreds of men and women gathered at a rally in Bengaluru, with some accusing the government of trying to divide India along communal lines, to distract from a sharp domestic economic slowdown and job losses.

(With inputs from Reuters, PTI)