In the wake of the anti- Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) protests taking place all over the country with students and universities taking active part in it, a Polish student of Jadavpur University (JU) has been asked by the Foreigner Regional Registration Office (FRRO) to leave the country after he participated in one such rally in Kolkata.
According to news agency PTI’s sources, Kamil Siedcynski, a student of Comparative Literature, was asked by the FRRO to visit its Kolkata office, which he did on February 22.
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“Siedcynski was served a notice by the FRRO asking him to leave the country within a fortnight on receipt of the notice for alleged conduct deemed inappropriate for a foreign national staying in India on a student visa,” the source said.
Recently, Afsara Anika Meem, a first-year Bangladeshi undergraduate student in the Fine Arts department of the Visva-Bharati University too was served an FRRO notice for reportedly engaging in “anti-government” activities after she posted photographs of an anti-CAA demonstration, held on the campus, on social media.
The JU source said several teachers and Left-leaning students of the varsity were of the view that Siedcynski was paying the price for attending an anti-CAA rally at Moulali area in the city in December last year where he was interviewed by a Bengali daily and a brief report on him was published the next day.
“Some people probably forwarded a copy of the report to the FRRO. Siedcynski has no political leanings but his enthusiasm to attend the protest rally and click photographs landed him in trouble,” the source said.
Siedcynski had earlier studied Bengali at the Visva Bharati University.
Both the foreign nationals have requested the FRRO to reconsider its decision and promised not to get involved in any such protests in the future, sources said.
The FRRO, in turn, has said that a final decision will be taken in Delhi, the source said quoting the two students.
The amended law seeks to provide citizenship to Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian communities who have faced religious persecution in Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan and have arrived in India on or before December 31, 2014.
Violent protests have been reported from across the nation as locals and students demonstrating against the Act clashed with the police.
Campuses in India have erupted in anger over the amended law with students from at least 15 universities taking on to the streets.
(With PTI inputs)