Opposition mounting against citizenship law

Hundreds of university students flooded the streets of India's capital, while on Monday a march was organized by a southern government and protesters held a silent protest in the northeast to protest a new law granting nationality to non-Muslims who entered India illegally to escape religious persecution in several neighboring countries.

The demonstrations in New Delhi followed a night of violent clashes at the Jamia Millia Islamia University between police and protesters. Protesters who said student administrators were not students set three buses on fire and the university library was raided by officers, shooting tear gas at students crouching under desks.

The government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi says the Citizenship Amendment Act, passed by Parliament last week, would make India a safe haven for Hindus and other religious minorities in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan, a Muslim country. But critics say the legislation, which conditions Indian citizenship on religion for the first time, violates the secular constitution of the largest democracy in the world.

The passage of the bill has sparked demonstrations across India, but the largest toll has been seen by Assam, the hub of a decades-old movement against illegal immigrants.

Assam police officials say officers have fatally shot five protesters in the state capital of Gauhati while attempting to restore order to a city that has been engulfed in demonstrations since last week. Approximately 1,500 people were arrested for abuse, including arson and theft, police spokesman GP Singh said, adding officials are reviewing surveillance videos and expecting more arrests. Schools remain closed until Dec. 22, the government has blocked internet service across the state, and a curfew was imposed between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. Foreign journalists are not allowed to travel to the northeastern region of India, including Assam, without a permit.

Municipal workers were clearing the city of burning tyres and other garbage on Monday and some shops had reopened as a silent protest led by the All Assam Students Union, which has been leading Assam's anti-immigration campaign for decades. The party and its supporters believe an influx of migrants would dilute the culture and political strength of indigenous Assamese.

Citizenship law follows a controversial process of registering citizenship in Assam to weed out people who have illegally immigrated. Home Minister Amit Shah vowed to carry it out nationally, pledging to remove "infiltrators" from India.

Close to 2 million people were exempted from the list in Assam, about half Hindu and half Muslim, and were asked to prove their nationality or otherwise be declared indian. India is building a detention center for some of the hundreds of thousands of people expected to arrive illegally in the country by the courts.

For many of the Hindus left off Assam's nationality list, the Nationality Amendment Bill could provide protection and a fast path to naturalization.

Bangladesh has consistently said it wouldn't allow anybody India is willing to be a foreigner but on Sunday, foreign minister AK Abdul Momen said it asked the Modi government for information regarding Bangladeshis living illegally in India in order to repatriate them.

Momen made the comment with fear that people from the Indian state of West Bengal were being driven into Bangladesh.

Bangladeshi officials say that at least 329 people have been arrested last month on charges of trespassing from India and refusing to claim that they are Bangladeshis.

Momen said they'll be sent back to India if they're believed to be non-Bangladeshi.