More than 550 members of the theatre fraternity have expressed solidarity with the student fraternity of the Jamia Millia Islamia University and the Aligarh Muslim University, saying “students have borne the brunt of state brutality in response to their right to peacefully protest the Citizen Amendment Bill.”
The signatories include Sanjna Kapoor, Ramu Ramanathan, Sameera Iyengar, Geetanjali Kulkarni, Abhishek Majumdar, Mohit Takalkar, Jim Sarbh, Dolly Thakore, A. Mangai, Annie Zaidi, Danish Hussain, Sudhanva Deshpande, Kumud Mishra and Manav Kaul among others.
The theatre fraternity has called on the government “to immediately desist from attacking students across the country, and institute an impartial enquiry into circumstances of the heinous attacks on student communities by the police forces.” They have also added that “Those across the country who have spoken against this act have done so as per the rights and responsibilities bestowed upon them by the constitution, which forms the very basis of their citizenship. Police brutality and attacks on such protesters are a strategy to silence our voices and shake the very foundation of what it means to be a citizen.”
