The telephone and internet service was suspended in several areas of New Delhi by order of the Government of India, amid escalating protests against the Citizenship Law

The telephone and internet service was suspended in several areas of New Delhi by order of the Government of India, amid escalating protests against the Citizenship Law.

Call, messaging and internet services were interrupted in different areas of the Indian capital until further notice by the instruction of the authorities, confirmed Thursday the companies Airtel and Vodafone Idea operating in the area.

For more than a week, violent clashes between police and protesters have been going on in New Delhi in protest against the controversial legal amendment granted by the country’s citizenship to foreign refugees based on their religion, excluding Muslims.

They also extend through several cities in the country, against a law passed last week in Parliament, and promoted by the governmental Hindu nationalist party BJP, which will regularize immigrants from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh who arrived in the country before 2014 and belonging to the Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian religions.

Amid this climate of increasing tension, Prime Minister Narendra Modi blamed the opposition on Tuesday for spreading lies about the controversial law and creating an atmosphere of fear in the Muslim community, which accounts for 14% of the Indian population, which amounts to 1.3 billion inhabitants.

“No citizen of the country will be affected by this law. The law we made is for minorities persecuted in neighbouring countries,” all of them Muslim majority, said the president, who also asked the opposition to “stop this guerrilla policy that divides the nation.”

The opposition, human rights groups and international associations have been very critical of the norm promoted by the BJP, considering that it intends to transform India into a country centred on Hindus, by making religion a basis for obtaining citizenship, although the Constitution establishes the secular nature of the State.