Have asked Delhi Police to ensure peace: Shah

Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Tuesday said he has directed the Delhi Police to maintain law and order, and to ensure peace in the national capital.

Shah also said the National Register of Citizens (NRC), carried out in Assam, was not a religion-based exercise.

"Whoever is not eligible to be included in the NRC will be sent out of the country," he said in response to a question at the 'Agenda Aaj Tak' programme.

"I have directed the Delhi Police to maintain law and order and ensure peace in Delhi," he said.

The remarks of the home minister came after violent protests were witnessed at the Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) University on Sunday and at Seelampur on Tuesday.

Asked about the force used by police inside the JMI University campus, Shah said the protesters indulged in violence, set blaze six buses and one private vehicle.

"Don't you think that police should take action? Police has to take action because that is their duty and the right thing for them to do. Police did not go after the students," he said.

He said out of the total 224 universities in the country, only 22 have seen protests, four of which were big varsities.

"So, it is not right to say that a lot of universities have seen protests," he said when asked that students of universities were protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).

"Students haven't read the CAA properly. I appeal to them to do so. If they have issues, they can bring them forth to the government. As people understand the Act better, the protests will gradually die down," he said.

Shah also dismissed a suggestion that the Modi government was working to create a 'Hindu Rashtra' by bringing in the new Citizenship Act and laws like that on instant triple talaq and others.

"Absolutely not. Everyone is free to follow his religion. This government's religion is only the Constitution of India," he said.

Asked about his declaration that the government was going to implement the NRC across the country, the home minister said that "bonafide Indian citizens" should have no fear.

"No Indian will be sent out of the country. I want to tell the minorities that special facility will be made for them and also other people (for the NRC). But I also want to ask should we keep our borders open for illegal immigrants?" he said.

"Whenever the NRC will come, no person of the minority community will face injustice but no infiltrator will be spared," Shah said.

Asked whether as the home minister was he in a hurry to take sensitive and important decisions, Shah said the Narendra Modi government was not in a hurry but was trying to solve problems which have been pending for a long time.

"We are not in a hurry. There is no election in the near future. We are not doing politics. We are trying to solve the problems which the Congress has kept lingering for long," he said.

On the current economic scenario, Shah said he trusted the leadership of Nirmala Sitharaman as the finance minister and added that the economy will "go ahead" in the next three quarters.

Asked about his party's failure to form government in Maharashtra, Shah said there was no failure but the BJP could not form the government as its ally Shiv Sena got greedy and wanted to install its own chief minister which was not acceptable to the BJP.

"Has they (Shiv Sena) negotiated before elections everything would have been clear," the minister said.

In the hindsight, "I could say it was a lesson", he said.