Inspired by the women of Shaheen Bagh in Delhi who have been protestingthe Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), National Register of Citizens (NRC) andNational Population Register (NPR) for more than a month now, women of Mumbaiare also staging a similar protest.
A group of Muslim women, including household helps and students, inMumbai have started an indefinite protest against CAA. They have vowed to notleave the protest site until the government withdraws the contentious act. Thegroup, which has around 60-70 people and later swelled to over 100, startedgathering on the road on Sunday evening.
Most of them are residents of Muslim-dominated Madanpura, Jhoola Maidan,Apripada, and Mumbai Central areas.
They have so far not withdrawn their agitation despite senior officers ofthe Mumbai Police urging them to do so, an official said on Monday morning.
¡°Thegovernment is just doing what it feels like. They have detained Bhim Army chiefChandrashekhar Azad when he was protesting against the act. The women in UttarPradesh are not being allowed to protest, this is completely unconstitutional,¡±Fatima Khan, a law student who is leading the protesters, told Hindustan Times.
Protestersare headstrong about the agitation and want Shaheen Bagh-like protests acrossthe country.
They arereaching out to more people to join the protest through social media. The womenprotesters could be seen holding placards with slogans like ¡°We stand againstCAA, NRC, NPR¡±, ¡°They tried to divide us¡± and ¡°Respect My Existence or ExpectMy Resistance¡± written on them.?
Sloganshailing Hindu-Muslim unity and brotherhood were also raised.
At ShaheenBagh, close to 500 women have been protesting 24x7 against the citizenship actand the proposed NRC for the past 40 days. They have said the protest will onlystop once the legislation is withdrawn.
TheCitizenship Amendment Act seeks to grant citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Jains,Parsis, Buddhists and Christians fleeing religious persecution from Pakistan,Afghanistan and Bangladesh and who came to India on or before December 31,2014. It omits Muslims from the list of refugees.