Hundreds of Mumbai women are protesting and raising slogans against the controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), National Population Register (NPR) and the proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC).
It’s been reported that women sat down on the Morland Road outside Arabia Hotel since late night on Sunday. It seems that they have drawn inspiration from New Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh protest which started from December 15 and thousands of people, including women and children, have been protesting since against the CAA and the NRC.
Despite the best efforts of the Mumbai police to convince people to cooperate, the women holding placards and raising slogans like “We stand against CAA, NRC and NPR; they tried to divide us, Respect my existence or expect my resistance.” Slogans hailing Hindu-Muslim unity and brotherhood were also raised.
Fatima a law student, addressing the protestors said, “You should love your country but it is not necessary that you also love your government. Chandrashekhar Azad has been detained; he is fighting for all of us. He gets detained wherever he goes…we are sitting here for people like Azad and for the women of Shaheen Bagh. We won’t move from here.”
One of the police officer said from among the protesters most of them are residents of Muslim-dominated areas like Madanpura, Jhoola Maidan, Apripada and Mumbai Central.
Shalini Sharma senior inspector of the Nagpada police station said that she had requested the protesters to take prior permission from the police. However they refused to move and continued to occupy the road. All this shows that the protesting women aren’t interested to budge.
