Amid the ongoing protests in the northeast against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, the Joint CSIR-UGC NET examination, scheduled to be held on 15 December, has been postponed until further notification.

A public notice issued by National Testing Agency, an autonomous organisation under the Department of Higher Education, said, “The candidates scheduled to appear in Joint CSIR-UGC NET December 2019 examination in Assam (Dibrugarh, Guwahati, Jorhat, Silchar, Sivasagar and Tezpur) and Meghalaya (Shillong) are hereby informed that their examination has been postponed.”

In in other states/Union Territories, the examination will be held on 15 December. “The revised date of examination for Assam and Meghalaya will be announced soon. All the candidates are advised to regularly visit the website of NTA www.nta.ac.in and https://csirnet.nta.nic.in for further information”, it said.

The passing of the Citizenship Bill in the Parliament had plunged the northeast, especially the state of Assam, into deep chaos with locals and students hitting the streets in thousands, burning tyres and wooden logs prompting the administration to impose curfew in Guwahati and suspend mobile internet services in 10 districts of the state.

However, thousands of demonstrators defied the indefinite curfew and marched onto the streets.

To control the deteriorating law and order situation in Assam, eight columns of the Indian Army were on Thursday deployed in Assam and Tripura as per the requests made by the governments of the two states.

The violent protests had brought road, rail and air traffic to a standstill.

The Army conducted flag marches in Guwahati and three districts including Dibrugarh and Tezpur and the authorities extended the suspension of Internet services for another 48 hours from 12 noon on Thursday.

According to the Citizenship Act, members of Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian communities who have come from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan till December 31, 2014, and facing religious persecution there will not be treated as illegal immigrants but given Indian citizenship.

The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill was passed by Rajya Sabha on Wednesday and by Lok Sabha on Tuesday.