Hyderabad: Residents of India’s Hyderabad city have joined nationwide protests to reject the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act introduced by the Narendra Modi government.

Hundreds of thousands of protesters, carrying national flags, black flags and placards, thronged the city’s roads on Saturday.

Traffic came to a grinding halt in several parts of Hyderabad as people responded enthusiastically to a “million march” called by the Joint Action Committee of about 40 organisations and groups to protest against discriminatory laws which pose threat to the citizenship of Muslim religious minority.

While the Hyderabad city police said they had permitted a gathering of only 1,000 people at Dharna Chowk (Indira Park) for a public meeting, the uncontrollable flood of people not only filled the stretch of half a kilometer but soon filled the adjoining NTR Stadium.

By 3pm. a nearly three-kilometre long route from the meeting point up to the state secretariat and Lakdi Ka Pul area was packed with the people.

There was also a sea of humanity on other routes towards Secunderabad, RTC X Roads and Himayatnagar as men, women and children continued to walk towards the venue. This had a cascading impact on many other arterial roads.

Traders, lawyers, software engineers, other professional, students, activists and house wives converged at Dharna Chowk near Indira Park where police had made elaborate security arrangements.

Thousands of burqa clad woman along with their children also marched with tri-color and placards condemning the CAA and NRC and demanding their revocation as the slogans of “Le Ke Rahenge Azadi” (We will achieve freedom) and “Long Live Constitution-Long Live India” rented the air.

While the majority of the participants were Muslims, there also people from Hindu and other communities in the protest demonstration. College-going girls with their own placards slamming Modi government were also in the forefront of the protest.

It was one of the biggest shows of strength by the people in Hyderabad after many years.

“This reflects the pent-up anger of the masses over the misdeeds of Prime Minister Narendra Modi”, said Mushtaq Malik, the convenor of JAC calling for the resignation of both the PM and his home minister Amit Shah.

Addressing the rally Malik said that though Hyderabad woke up to the serious threat to the constitution much after the other cities, “the city has proved its people were not asleep”.

He and other speakers vowed that they would continue their agitation until the government withdrew the Citizenship Amendment Act and scrapped the proposal of preparing a National Register of Citizens and National Population Register.

Many citizens, especially India’s Muslims have been rattled by the repeated statements of the leaders of ruling BJP that the government will verify its citizens and those who could not prove their citizenship will be thrown out of the country.

Some security arrangements were made at Dharna Chowk with hundreds of stick-wielding police officers keeping a vigil, but soon they were outnumbered, leaving senior officials worried. However the crowd was disciplined and maintained peace and cooperated with the policemen on duty.

The huge turnout of the people came as a surprise to observers as the main Muslim political party in the city Majlis e Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) of Asaduddin Owaisi and other religious organisations were not part of the event.