MObile internet services and SMS of all mobile service providers have been suspended in Lucknow till December 21 noon, according to an Uttar Pradesh government order. Additional Chief Secretary Awanish Kumar Awasthi issued an order to this effect late on Thursday night. “The order is effective from 3 pm on December 19 till 12 pm on December 21,” he stated in the order. The decision has been taken in view of violence during protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). A 25-year-old man was killed as violence erupted in the state capital and some other parts of UP with protesters, angry over the amended citizenship law, pelting stones at police and torching vehicles. Internet services were also suspended in Sambhal, Aligarh, Mau, Ghaziabad and Azamgarh districts, even as Section 144 of the CrPC, which bans assembly of people, was already in force in the entire state for several days. The CAA, which has met with objection from a section of people, allows citizenship to Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Parsis who entered India before 2015 after facing religious persecution in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. The list excludes Muslims.
