DMK President Stalin, P Chidambaram & 8,000 others booked for anti-CAA protest march

DMK has been opposing the CAA since it was tabled as a bill in the Parliament, all the DMK MPs in both the houses voted against the bill and opposed it strongly with its ally Congress. DMK president Stalin also individually conducted protests last week against the bill and also approached SC against the CAA, which was also heard as one of the petitions which challenged the CAA.

While this was the case, the principal opposition party DMK conducted a massive protest march with other alliance parties and 90 other groups to oppose the Citizenship Amendment Act. The protest march had parties like Congress, MDMK, CPM, CPI, VCK, MMK, IUML, and its students and youth wing which crossed the strength of over 20,000. Though the police denied permission for this protest march of DMK, the march happened despite the police permission which leads to the FIR against the leader. Two petitions were filed in the Madras high court on Sunday evening and an urgent hearing took place on the same night. The MHC neither permitted nor stayed the protest. But said that protests are part of democracy and the political parties had to follow the rules during such protests and ordered the Chennai city police to record videos using drones to take action in the case of violence.

Several leaders booked 

Despite 20,000 people participating in the march, no violence was reported. But Chennai Police have booked DMK President MK Stalin, former finance minister P Chidambaram, MDMK chief and RS MP Vaiko, VCK chief, and MP Thirumavalavan and other leaders belonging to the left and other alliance parties. FIR is been filed against 8,000 cadres of the DMK and other alliance parties aswell. The sections include section 143 for unlawful assembly, 188 for disobedience towards public servants, punishment for wrongful restraint and 41(6) of the Chennai Police act. 600 people including actor Siddharth, singer TM Krishna, and many student organisations were booked in similar sections for protesting at Valluvar Kottam area of Chennai against the same.

Read: Mamata Banerjee joins anti-CAA rally, compares Act to citizenship provisions abroad

Read: Tamil Nadu: Kamal Haasan extends support towards DMK's anti-CAA rally scheduled on Dec 23

The Chennai police are denying any such permissions for the anti-CAA protests, keeping the violence that happened in the other States. However, no violence is been reported in Tamilnadu so far because of anti-CAA protests.

Read: Tamil Nadu's opposition party DMK along with 11 allies stage protest against CAA

Read: CAA protests: Yogi Adityanath govt begins outreach with Muslim leaders in Uttar Pradesh