Women suspend anti-CAA stir in UP

Tribune News Service

Lucknow, March 23

The more than two-month-long dharna of women to protest against CAA, NRC at the historic Ghanta Ghar was suspended on Monday morning following the Covid-19 scare. Shia cleric Kalbe Sadiq had appealed to the women to suspend the dharna due to disease and had pointed out the fact that it was not possible to maintain the protocols at the dharna site.

The dharna began on January 17 and despite the police and district administration’s brutality, the women braved the cold wave conditions, locking up of washrooms, snatching away of blankets and food but continued to sit on the dharna.

More than a dozen FIRs were lodged against the protesting women including criminal cases against the daughters of famous Urdu poet Munnawar Rana.

Samajwadi Party workers Puja Shukla had been arrested from the site and released a few days later.

Three women had succumbed to fever and pneumonia after they were drenched at the dharna site during the sudden downpour and hailstorm last fortnight.

Mumbai Protesters call it off too

Protesters against the Citizenship Amendment Act and the National Register of Citizens at Nagpada, known as Mumbai Bagh, have withdrawn their sit-in in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. They said in a statement released late last night that they were pausing their protests. Earlier, representatives of the Maharashtra Government held talks with community leaders. “All protesters at Mumbai Bagh are withdrawing due to the epidemic and Section 144 in the state. We are equally willing to stop the spreading of coronavirus by avoiding mass gathering at the protest site,” Rubaid Ali Bhojani, a spokesperson for the protesters, said. “We may have a difference with the government on the CAA, the NRC and the NPR but we are with the government on Covid-19,” Bhojani said. — TNS