NEW DELHI/BENGALURU: Three people died of injuries sustained in intensifying protests against a new citizenship law in India on Thursday with thousands taking to the streets nationwide in defiance of temporary bans on public gatherings.
Police detained hundreds of people in Delhi and Bengaluru and shut down the internet in some districts to help pre-empt large planned protests.
College students, academics, minority Muslim groups and opposition parties have been prominent in an escalating series of street protests now in their second week.
Two of Thursday’s deaths occurred in Mangaluru and one in Lucknow, according to hospital officials. Two of the dead protesters – one in Mangaluru and one in Lucknow – had been shot, they said.
A curfew was imposed later in parts of Mangaluru.
Internet and text messaging services were suspended by government order for four hours in parts of Delhi, mobile carriers said, widening a communications clampdown in restive areas stretching from disputed Kashmir to the northeast.
