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Delhi witnesses massive traffic jams amid CAA protests, new year celebrations at India Gate

Protesters and visitors, who were out to mark the first day of year 2020, led to a massive crowds at the iconic India Gate, leading to traffic snarls and 5 metro station being shut.

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New Delhi: Slogans like “kagaz nahi dikhayenge” and “hum dekhenge” by scores of protesters reverberated on Wednesday at India Gate here where people took a mass pledge to “defend the Constitution” by opposing the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).

The number of protesters as well as visitors, who were out to celebrate the New Year on a sunny day, led to a massive crowd around the iconic monument, causing the traffic to virtually crawl in adjoining areas.

Celebrating the new year by “reading the preamble”, the protesters including students from various universities then read out the pledge that they will “not show any document”, referring to the controversial National Register of Citizens (NRC) and National Population Register (NPR).

“We, today on 1st January 2020, reiterate our resolve to give ourselves a society that will be free of oppressors and take oath to not show any document to prove our citizenship and we will observe and propagate complete non-cooperation with anti-constitution and anti-India forces.

“We the people of India, are sovereign as we give ourselves the constitution. No government elected by us on the basis of this constitution has the right to turn around and ask the people to ‘prove’ our citizenship on the basis of a divisive diabolical agenda trampling upon the very core of our constitution,” the protesters said while reading the pledge.

There was heavy police deployment to avoid any untoward incident.

“We in no way are going to discriminate (against) our fellow people on the basis of gender, race, colour, language, sex, caste or religion. Equality and Justice, politically, socially and culturally is what we want to assure each other,” former JNU Students Union President N Sai Balaji said.

Several protesters waved the national flag while others displayed placards with creative slogans against the new law and chanted the slogan “Azadi”.

“Our new year resolution is to defend the constitution. They cannot keep doing whatever they want to, there have to be some norms followed and the basic structure of the country cannot be demolished,” said Sarthak Chaubey, a Jamia Millia Islamia student.

DMRC closes entry and exit gates of 5 stations

Entry and exit gates of five Delhi Metro stations were closed in the evening to ease rush of passengers.

The Delhi Traffic Police has been constantly alerting commuters about the vehicular traffic through its official handle on Twitter to avoid any inconvenience.

Commuters were stuck in traffic jams on roads leading to India Gate, Connaught Place and ITO.

“Entry & exit gates of Central Secretariat, Udyog Bhawan, Pragati Maidan, Khan Market and Mandi House are closed. Interchange is available at Central Secretariat and Mandi House,” the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) tweeted.

Commuters took to Twitter to inform the Delhi Police about the massive traffic jams.

The police said traffic is heavy around India Gate and C-Hexagon due to gathering of visitors and heavy volume of motorists.

It advised people coming from Noida to take DND or Akshardham to reach Delhi since road no. 13A between Mathura Road and Kalindi Kunj is closed for traffic movement.

Vehicular movement was affected in North Delhi due to the breakdown of a truck on Prembari flyover, officials said.

“Traffic movement is closed on Jai Singh road from Ashok road side due to heavy volume of vehicles,” the Delhi Traffic Police said in a tweet.

“Traffic will remain heavy from Raja Garden towards Punjabi Bagh due to ongoing work by PWD. Kindly avoid the stretch,” it tweeted.


Also read: Week after death of Varanasi boy during CAA protest, family yet to get post-mortem report


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1 COMMENT

  1. I m shocked when I have seen police brutality at JAMIA n AMU…Yogi police caught on camera raising lathi damaging bikes n scooters…that action was not enough or satisfactory to take revenge from 1 community by a man who wore our cultural safron attire…As BJP has said many time this is historic bill then why some state of NE India r been exampted…oh! I forget to mention here Bodo dist karbi dist exampted why selectively n rest of the assam will have accept those Bangladeshi who came here before 31st of December 2014…BJP itself rejected this act in Assam as I have mentioned above Bodo n karbi district…let us not forget about Modi ji n his team game plan which they can play with us…

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