Curfew was relaxed in parts of Assam and Meghalaya, after days of recently amended Citizenship Act. However, the situation was still heated in parts of West Bengal witnessing arson affecting the rails and roadways.
Assam Finance minister and senior BJP leader Himanta Biswa Sarma said he is personally taking care of the situation and working on how things can be normalized in the northeastern state of Assam and its sister states as common people movement in the capital cities trickled up gradually after curfew was relaxed in Guwahati and Shillong. The administration relaxed the curfew in Dibrugarh and Guwahati from 9 am-4 pm on Saturday. Also, the suspension of internet services across the state was extended for 48 hours till December 16.
Sarma, along with local MLAs and MPs, had a meeting with Assam Chief Minister and are closely monitoring the situation.
“PWD workers are working overtime to clear the debris all over the place across the city due to vandalism on December 11 and 12,” Sarma said in a tweet post. “I am personally supervising the work. I just visited some spots to check the progress of work,” he said.
East Khasi Hills district deputy commissioner MW. Nongbri said few offices and shops have opened in the state capital. She further added, there has been normal traffic since morning in Shillong, and there was no report of any unexpected incident in the past 12 hours.
Violent agitation continued to boil west Bengal burning around 15 buses including 3 state buses by the protestors after evacuating passengers from them. Angry protestors also blocked traffic on the arterial Kona Expressway in Howrah that connects both NH6 (Mumbai Road) and NH2 (Delhi Road) to Kolkata, the police said.
An agency reported protestors gathered on the rail lines at Poradanga, Jangipur and Farakka stations in Murshidabad district and Bauria and Nalpur stations in west Bengal which disrupted the rails service in South Eastern Railway in Howrah district.
Several other roads including the national highway 34 that connects the north and south Bengal was blocked in Murshidabad that borders Bangladesh.
The situation in Assam has been quite violating in the last few days. Thousands of protestors came out on streets thumbing their nose at Army groups and clashing with police to rebel against newly amended Citizenship Act.
Guwahati was in army net with Army, paramilitary and state police personnel assigned at every corner watching frenetic mobs blocking roads with burnt tyres and threatening commuters by hitting their vehicles with sticks and stones.
When the protestors started throwing stones at personnel in Lalung Gaon in Guwahati, then the police had to open fire. Although there was no official information four of the protestors claimed to be injured in firing on Thursday. The protest has been escalating in parts of West Bengal too.
On Friday, police had to resort to Lathi charge, when the students of Jamia Milia Islamia University in Delhi came on roads to protest against the Act when a few sections of Muslims felt apart on religious grounds.
The vacation has been declared in Jamia Milia Islamia till January 5 and all the exams have been cancelled due to tensed situation by amended Citizen Act.
“All exams postponed. New dates to be announced in due course of time. Vacation declared from December 16 to January 5. University will reopen on January 6, 2020,” a senior university official said.