Video: Students’ anti-CAA protest at Wankhede met with Modi-Modi chants

In a surprising turn of events, a group of students protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) at Mumbai’s Wankhede stadium on Tuesday were met with Modi-Modi chants from the crowd.

Around two dozen students – wearing white lettered t-shirts and holding banners reading ‘No CAA’, ‘No NPR’ and ‘No NPC’ – were seen protesting at Wankhede stadium during the first ODI between India and Australia yesterday.

The group, purportedly associated with ‘Mumbai Against CAA’, was also seen shouting anti-CAA slogans during the match.

“There were 26 persons in total and they were sitting in the Vijay Merchant Pavilion side,” Fawad Ahmad, a part of the group, said.

During the course of the match, security personnel approached the students and asked them to leave the premises for the alleged political sloganeering.

When the students refused to leave the stadium, on the grounds that they were not breaking any rules, some of the other spectators started chanting ‘Modi-Modi’ in retaliation. As more people joined in, the students got back to their seats.

While some reports indicate that the students were either escorted out of the stadium or that they left on their own after the Modi-Modi chants, Ahmad refuted the reports, claiming that they themselves left the stadium when Indian wickets started tumbling.

A video showing the guards interacting with the protestors and the subsequent Modi-Modi chants is now going viral on social media.

Meanwhile, there were also reports that people wearing black clothing were not allowed inside the stadium by security guards amid fear of protests.

The Citizenship Amendment Act grants Indian citizenship to non-Muslim refugees from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan on or before December 31, 2014, on grounds of religious persecution in their home countries.

The contentious act has met with strong opposition from some quarters ever since it was notified on January 10.