Hundreds of students and other groups gathered around the Mahatma Gandhi statue at Parliament Square in Westminster, London on Saturday to protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC) in India.
The PTI reported that the peaceful protest, called with a message to "Defend the Indian Constitution", brought together a number of UK-based South Asian organisations who chanted slogans of "Azadi" and waved the Indian Tricolour and placards calling for a withdrawal of the CAA and the NRC.
One of the demonstrators reportedly said, "We are here to say that we stand in solidarity with Jamia and AMU (Aligarh Muslim University) and all other students and people protesting across India.”
The demonstration on Saturday followed a series of protests across university campuses in the UK, organised mainly by South Asian societies, during the course of the week.
The Indian High Commission in London, meanwhile, has been circulating documents laying out the details of the act and stressing that the legislation "does not target any religious community from abroad."
"It only provides a mechanism for some migrants who may otherwise have been called 'illegal', depriving them of opportunity, to apply for Indian citizenship, provided they meet certain conditions," reads an official Indian government CAA brief.
