India’s Supreme Court has said it will take up a clutch of petitions against a new citizenship law next month, as anger against it grows.
The court told the federal government to prepare a response to the petitions, but the law has not been stayed.
The decision comes even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi reacted with defiance to widespread protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).
The law offers citizenship to non-Muslims from three nearby countries.
The Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government says it will protect people from persecution, but critics say it’s part of a “Hindu nationalist” agenda to marginalise India’s more than 200 million Muslims.
Adding to the fears is a government announcement that it plans to carry out a widespread exercise to weed out “infiltrators” from neighbouring countries.
Given that the exercise relies on extensive documentation to prove that their ancestors lived in India, many Muslim citizens fear that they could be made stateless.
However, Mr Modi said the law “will have no effect on citizens of India, including Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Jains, Christians and Buddhists”.
The prime minister also told his supporters at a rally on Tuesday that the opposition was “spreading lies and rumours”, “instigating violence” and “used its full force to create an atmosphere of illusion and falsehood”.
Home Minister Amit Shah echoed the sentiment to media saying “both my government and I are firm like a rock that we will not budge or go back on the citizenship protests”.
There have been demonstrations in cities across India.
Opponents say the law is exclusionary and violates the secular principles enshrined in the constitution. They say faith should not be made a condition of citizenship.
Others though – particularly in border states – fear being “overrun” by new arrivals from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan.of the student demonstrations focus less on the law itself but more on the alleged police brutality against protesters.
The capital Delhi has seen mass protests over the past days after a student demonstration on Sunday turned violent and left dozens injured.
On Tuesday, images from the city’s Seelampur area, which has a large Muslim population, showed stone-throwing crowds confronting police officers. Police retaliated with tear gas and batons.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court refused to hear a petition against the police action inside Delhi’s Jamia Millia Islamia University, where on Sunday they allegedly attacked students inside campus premises.
A man injured during the protests on that day told the BBC a policeman had shot him with a pistol or revolver.
Authorities deny police used live ammunition and have suggested the wounds might be from shrapnel from tear gas canisters.
