Protesters protest In New Year At Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh, large number of women participate
Saurabh Kumar/Lokesh Goswami Tennews New Delhi :
New Delhi : Hundreds of people in South Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh ushered in the New Year, amid the biting cold, with a protest against the amended citizenship law that fast-tracks the process of giving citizenship to persecuted non-Muslims from three neighbouring countries.
The protest, mostly led by women, has been going on for over two weeks and also at a time when Delhi recorded its second-coldest December in 118 years. Some women brought their children along to the protest site, where people are huddled into tents with a pile of blankets.
Several people were seen waving the national flag at Shaheen Bagh on the last night of 2019 on Tuesday. Others came with placards against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act.
As the clock struck 12 and the New Year began, the crowd sang the national anthem, followed by the slogans, “inquilab zindabad(long live the revolution)”, news agency Press Trust of India reported.
The Citizenship (Amendment) Act for the first time makes religion the test of citizenship in India. The government says it will help minorities from three Muslim-dominated countries to get citizenship if they fled to India before 2015 because of religious persecution. Critics say it is designed to discriminate against Muslims and violates the secular principles of the constitution.
