Scores of people, including students, doctors and artists on Sunday gathered at Central Park in Connaught Place here to protest against the amended citizenship law and the proposed all-India NRC, flashing placards with slogans like 'Make India Democratic Again' and 'My name is Khan and I am an Indian'.
Several AIIMS doctors wearing stethoscope also participated in the protests with the demonstrators singing patriotic songs and reciting poems.
Organised by a newly-formed group called 'Delhiites For Constitution', several protesters held up placards with catchy slogans like: 'My name is Khan and I am an Indian', 'It is so bad that even engineers are here', 'Make India Democratic Again', and 'Darr ke Aage Peace hai'.
From Inquilab Zindabad to Aae mere watan ke logon and Bharat Mata ki Jai reverberated the site. People also read out preamble of the Constitution and sang national anthem.
They took pledge to save the Constitution and not let anyone divide them on the basis of religion, caste and creed.
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Ajay Verma, a psychiatrist at AIIMS, sang songs against the contentious law amid loud cheers and applause by the students.
"It is going to be a long battle. People hurt in protest were not given timely treatment. We have arranged ambulance to provide immediate medical aid to people," Verma said.
Jawaharlal Nehru University professor Jayati Ghosh thanked youths of the country for starting the movement against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and the National Register of Citizens (NRC), saying "you gave us hope".
"'Kashmir wali normalcy' is spreading and we want freedom from that normalcy," Ghosh said. "We should not stop now, we need to go forward."
Rashmi from Venkateshwara College said there was a need to bring back narrative to real issues like employment and whether ordnance factories would remain as public sector or not.
"These are the questions we should ask, not the CAA being thrown at us," she said.
Sneha Kumari, an IT professional, said people know that CAA was the same tool that demonetisation was.
"Indians have realised that, they cannot fool us anymore," Kumari said.
Satish Raghav, a Delhi University student, said this country was not of the 303 MPs sitting in Parliament, but of the 1.3 billion Indians.
Protests broke out across the country after the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill was cleared by Parliament and signed by President Ram Nath Kovind into an Act.
According to the Act, people from Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian communities who have come to India till December 31, 2014, from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan due to religious persecution there will be given Indian citizenship.
The protesters claim that the legislation was "unconstitutional and divisive" as it excludes Muslims. At least 16 people have been killed in violence in Uttar Pradesh alone during anti-CAA protests since Thursday.
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