MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 21st December, 2019) Nine people were killed on Friday during the protests over the Citizenship Amendment Act in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, Indian media reported.
Regional police said that more than 50 security officers had been injured in clashes with the protesters, the Hindustan Times newspaper reported.
Police have not reportedly resorted to gunfire.
"We did not shoot even a single bullet," Uttar Pradesh Director General of Police Om Prakash Singh said, as quoted by the NDTV broadcaster.
According to Hindustan Times, the total number of people killed in the protests across India on Thursday and Friday reached 17.
The ongoing nationwide protests in India are a result of parliament passing last week's bill, which allowed citizenship for Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, Christians, Sikhs and Parsis facing persecution in neighboring countries. Muslims are not included in the bill.
The law angered the Indian Muslim community, which believes that it violates the constitution, as it oppresses a group of citizens in a formally secular country on religious grounds. The residents of the country's northeastern states fear that now millions of people from Bangladesh could legally settle in their regions, which could threaten the interests of the local population.
On Wednesday, the Indian Supreme Court refused to suspend the implementation of the citizenship law as amended, despite the ongoing unrest in the country.
