Hyderabad: Scores of protesters who had gathered for an all-party public meeting to oppose the National Register of Citizens and the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019 were detained near the Exhibition Grounds in Nampally.
Jamaat-e-Islami, Telangana and Odisha president Hamed Mohammed Khan and CPI leader Syed Azeez Pasha, among others, who had arrived the venue too were detained. They were taken to the Nampally Police Station. They were released later.
Mr Khan sent a message to the media informing him of his detention. Speaking to siasat.com, Mr Khan said, “They picked me up as soon as I arrived at the Exhibition Grounds. We were here to register our opposition peacefully. We urge the Chief Minister to understand the issue. After all he has voted against the CAA in the Parliament,” Mr Khan said.
The call for protest was given by the CPI and all its affiliates. Telangana Jana Samithi, JIH, Students Islamic Organisation and other groups also joined the protest. Student unions from the University of Hyderabad, Osmania, EFLU and several other educational institutions had also planned to converge at the exhibition grounds.
The series of preventive detentions continued on Thursday with approximately 100 University of Hyderabad students being picked up from campus gates.
“We were going towards Exhibition Grounds. We were moving peacefully to protest against unconstitutional legislations. But, police pushed us into a bus and took us to the Moinabad Police Station. The CAA and NRC are unconstitutional,” a student leader who was detained said.
Meanwhile, South Zone police picked up around 40 people who had gathered near Charminar. They too were preventively detained. The protesters later raised slogans against Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao.