Lucknow anti-CAA protestors determined to defy Janata Curfew and threat of coronavirus

Protesting women at Lucknow’s ‘Ghanta Ghar’ (Clock Tower) are gearing up for more assaults by the police keen to evict them from the compound in Hussainabad, where they have been staging a peaceful protest against the controversial Citizenship Act amended in December.

“We are not moving out of here. The Corona virus can take our lives but the CAA and NRC will destroy the future of our entire community and our youth, many of whom, though born and educated here, could be denied citizenship and might spend their lives in detention camps,” explained Iram, one of the women protestors. Four FIRs were filed by the police against her in the last one and a half months.

The women on Thursday evening watched Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s address to the nation on their mobiles at the dharna sthal. “Janata Curfew is yet another attempt to force us to vacate the area. The police will again come on the pretext of enforcing Janata Curfew and ask us to vacate the area. But we will not leave. We will leave only if Modi government withdraws CAA,’ she said.

On Thursday night a posse of women police officers went to Hussainabad and distributed pamphlets telling the agitating women about virtues of maintaining social distance to beat COVID 19. The message was read out on the loudspeaker.

“We will take precautions and use sanitisers to wash our hands regularly. If still we are infected with the coronavirus, we will prefer to die than vacating the area,” Zakira Begum said.

She says that they first faced police brutality when cops forcibly snatched away blankets and dismantled the stage. Zakira claimed that two women protestors fainted and a few others received minor injuries in the scuffle. “The police warned us to leave or else they threatened they would open fire at us. They were telling us that the Yogi government had banned our dharna,” she recalled.

On Thursday evening the police arrived when the attendance was thin. They cordoned off the area and asked the women to go home because the State Government had banned dharnas in view of the spread of coronavirus.

Zaid Farooqui, a social activist, said that the message spread like wildfire that police had come to vacate the area. Soon the crowd swelled. Shops in the vicinity shut down and they all joined the protest, he said.

Asad Rizvi, who was present there said that seeing the men coming in support of women the police beat a hasty retreat. “We are sure that police will make another attempt when the attendance of the protesters will again be thin,” he said.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has hinted that if anti-CAA protestors fail to heed the administration’s appeal, they would be forcibly removed.