Amid the ongoing festivities of Pongal, Telangana's capital Hyderabad witnessed a peaceful protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Population Register (NPR).
Locals, students, activists and political parties took to the street to demonstrate against the citizenship act and the National Register of Citizens (NRC). A Rangoli event was also held in Hyderabad where people drew colourful rangolis to protest against anti-government policies.
Speaking to ANI, CPI leader Sudhakar said "People are frustrated about the NRC and CAA. This is because the Forum for protection of Constitutional rights has given a call to this Rangoli event. We can witness the colorful Rangoli on the ground and the colorful kites in the sky. We can see a rangoli stating "No NRC".
"This is a peaceful protest. Our central government is against the people and we demand the government to scrap the NRC and CAA. We are going to this event on the district level and state level till CAA and NRC is scrapped," he said.
Sandhya Rani, a Women's Rights Activist told ANI: "On behalf of Save Constitutional Rights Committee, we have organised this event. We are doing a peaceful protest by converting the festival into a protest."
"By this amendment a majority of the Hindus are going to be affected and it is a myth that only the Islamic community is going to get affected. The poor and lower caste too are going to get affected. Now there is a burden on everyone's shoulder to prove their citizenship. The impact is on every citizen. So in this scenario we have taken a common people to form this protest," she said.
The protestors said that the current atmosphere in the country is very chaotic due to CAA and NRC.
"The Central government is creating disturbances by not abiding with the Constitution. We want everyone to be treated equally in this democracy. We are demanding for peacefulness and equality," Krishna Kumar, a protestor said.