Chennai: The German student who took part in anti-CAA protests here last week has left India after Bureau of Immigration authorities asked him to leave since his participation in demonstrations over domestic issues allegedly violated visa regulations.
Jakob Lindenthal, who was here on an exchange programme, was attached to the Physics Department of the IIT Madras left the country Monday night, sources in the institute said.
Holding a placard that had an indirect reference to the Nazi persecution of the Jews in Germany during 1933-45 during the Hitler regime, Lindenthal had told co-participants at a protest here last week that small measures against Jews had not attracted much attention initially. Such measures eventually led to their mass killings, he had said.
The placard read “1933-1945 We have been there.” He had also held another one which read, “No democracy without dissent.”
Jakob, who had also taken part in a protest at the institute’s Gajendra Circle against the amendment to the Citizenship Act, was a student of the Technical University of Dresden in Germany.
Immigration authorities were unavailable for comments.
In a tweet, Lindenthal said: “I will be alright. The best thing to do now: Change the world. A white guy evicted from India may get more media coverage, but this happens every day for even flimsier reasons and some people have nobody to call and nowhere to go.”
PTI