Fresh clashes in India as death toll hits 14

New Delhi - Street battles also broke out in the heart of India’s capital late on Friday.

Six more protesters died in fresh clashes on Friday between police and demonstrators, taking the death toll to 14 from more than a week of unrest triggered by the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) seen as anti-Muslim, as thousands rallied at the nation’s biggest mosque.
The latest deaths, in northern Uttar Pradesh state, followed the loss of three lives on Thursday when police opened fire on protesters in 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 said.
Rajkumar 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.
Street battles also broke out in the heart of India’s capital late on Friday with police firing a water cannon and baton charging protesters, who chanted anti-Modi slogans and threw stones.
Meanwhile, a top government official said on Friday that anyone born in India before July 1, 1987, or whose parents were born before that date are bona fide Indian citizens according to law, and need not worry about the CAA or a possible countrywide NRC.
According to the 2004 amendments of the Citizenship Act, people of the country, except those in Assam, whose one parent is an Indian and neither is an illegal immigrant are also considered Indian citizens.

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