Six people died and dozens were injured on Friday as Indian police clashed with thousands of protesters who again took to the streets in several parts of the country to oppose a new law they say discriminates against Muslims, reports Reuters.
There were standoffs at police barricades in half a dozen towns in Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state, which has long been a tinderbox of communal tensions between majority Hindus and minority Muslims.
At least six people died and 32 were injured in clashes between police and stone-throwing protesters, Uttar Pradesh police chief OP Singh told Reuters, making Friday the single deadliest day of the protests so far.
Singh said that none of the deaths on Friday were due to police shooting, and 144 people were arrested. With the latest fatalities, the total number of deaths during the nationwide demonstrations, now in their second week, stands at 13.
The backlash against the law pushed through parliament by the Hindu nationalist government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on December 11 marks the strongest show of dissent since he was first elected in 2014.
The latest deaths, in northern Uttar Pradesh state, followed the loss of three lives on Thursday when police opened fire on protesters in northern Lucknow and southern Mangalore cities.
Four of the demonstrators – two from Meerut district and two from neighbouring Muzaffarnagar district – died on Friday from "gunshot wounds," Meerut Chief Medical Officer Rajkumar told AFP.
Rajkumar, who goes by one name, added that five police officers, including three with bullet wounds, were being treated in hospital.
In the city of Firozabad, also in Uttar Pradesh, a police spokesman confirmed "one person has died and at least one other is injured... during the protests", but added the cause of death was not yet known.
In New Delhi's Daryaganj area, a commercial thoroughfare in the capital with many banks, shops and cafes, police fired a water cannon to disperse crowds of some 6,000 protesters, reports Reuters citing an official.
A Reuters witness saw a smouldering car that had been torched outside the Daryaganj police station, and shoes strewn across a street as dozens of policemen in riot gear kept watch.
"Please call my mother, please call my mother," one injured protester lying on a pavement begged, as police surrounded him.
Authorities were unable to immediately confirm the number of people injured in the clash in Daryaganj.
A car was set on fire and an AFP protester on the scene saw demonstrators bleeding from their heads and mouths during the clashes at Delhi Gate in the Old Delhi district.
Violence also spread to other parts of Uttar Pradesh, where almost 20% of the 200-million population are Muslim, with demonstrators throwing stones and police firing tear gas.
In Modi's home state of Gujarat, there were new clashes between security forces and protesters in Vadodara city, a day after battles in the largest city Ahmedabad left 20 policemen and 10 locals injured.
'We will not back down'
The confrontation came as thousands regathered at Delhi Gate following an earlier sit-in in the same area after marching from India's biggest mosque Jama Masjid in the afternoon, reports AFP.
"All the people here, be it those who are Hindu, Muslim, Sikh or Christian – they are all out on the streets," Tanvi Gudiya told AFP at another Delhi rally in a Muslim neighbourhood after Friday prayers.
"So doesn't it affect Modi at all? Does Modi not like anyone? Why is he becoming like Hitler?"
More than a dozen metro stations in Delhi were closed for the second-straight day.
"We will fight till this law is rolled back. We will not back down," Shamim Qureishi, 42, told Reuters outside the mosque.
In north-eastern Delhi, tens of thousands gathered in three different places to protest against the law, despite curbs on such assemblies, but later dispersed peacefully, police said.
Crowds pelted stones at police in Ferozabad, Muzzafarnagar and Ghaziabad among other cities in Uttar Pradesh and police fired tear gas in the city of Kanpur to scatter protesters.
Singh, the state police chief, said that violence had been reported in 13 districts.
Authorities said they shut the internet in parts of Uttar Pradesh state to prevent publication of inflammatory material. News channel NDTV broadcast images of a torched police van and officers chasing protesters throwing stones and wielding sticks.
'We want justice'
From college students and academics to artists and opposition party workers, thousands of people have come out to protest against a law that many believe is part of an unspoken government agenda to divide India along communal lines, reports Reuters.
Mobile phone services were briefly suspended Thursday in pockets of the capital, and access in parts of northeast India – where the wave of protests began – was only restored on Friday.
In a strongly worded editorial, the Indian Express on Friday said the government must do all it can "to keep the peace" in the country, home to 200 million Muslims, reports AFP.
"But in doing so the world's largest democracy cannot look like it cannot accommodate its young who disagree, it cannot afford to signal that it is so ill at ease with itself.
"India risks a lot if it begins to be seen as a place where the dissenter's mind is not without fear."
