NEW DELHI: A group of 154 eminent citizens — comprising former high court judges, ex-bureaucrats, armed forces veterans and academicians — on Monday wrote to the President of India expressing their concern at the “vicious” campaign and “fear-mongering” by “vested groups” against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, upcoming National Population Register (NPR) exercise and the idea of a National Register of Citizens (NRC).In the letter — signed by 11 former judges of different high courts, 24 retired IAS officers, 11 ex-IFS officers, 16 former IPS officers and 18 former Lieutenant Generals — the citizens urged the government to look into the ongoing protests against CAA/NRC “with all seriousness” and safeguard the democratic institutions by taking stern action against the vested interests behind them. They even alleged that the protests were designed to destroy the fabric of the country and harm the nation’s unity and integrity. “We strongly feel that there is also an external dimension to the disturbances being created,” they said .The citizens — which include former Chief Justice of Sikkim high court Justice Permod Kohli , former defence secretary Yogendra Narain, former RAW chief Sanjeev Kumar Tripathi , former Kerala chief secretary C V Anand Bose , former Kerala DGP R Padmanabhan and Puducherry University vice-chancellor Gurmeet Singh — said the campaign based on a “false and nefarious narrative” about CAA, NPR and NRC was being run in a “coordinated manner” leading to violent protests.They defended CAA saying that it was a law passed by Parliament and did not apply to Indian citizens at all. On NPR, they said it was a legal obligation. As for NRC, the citizens stressed that it was an absolute necessity for a country to maintain such a register for its security safety and well being.