In the next 10 days, there will be 5,000 more protest sites like Shaheen Bagh across the country, Bhim Army chief Chandrashekhar Azad said on Wednesday evening as he reached the iconic demonstration spot in south Delhi to extend his support to the women protesting against the citizenship law and the NRC.
Addressing a massive gathering, the Dalit leader said that the Citizenship (Amendment) Act is a “black law” that is dividing people along religious lines.
“I congratulate those who have participated in this protest. This is not just a political agitation. We have to save the Constitution and unity of the nation,” he told the women who have been staging a sit-in against the CAA for more than a month now.
Mr. Azad said even the record-breaking cold has not been able to break the will power of the women. “Till now, we had heard of Jallianwala Bagh. Now, the entire world has heard of Shaheen Bagh,” he added.
The protesters, singing Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s Urdu poem Hum Dekhenge before Mr. Azad’s arrival, got charged as he reached the venue.
Holding the Constitution, he said: “I promise you that in the next few days there will be at least 5,000 Shaheen Baghs across the country”.
His visit to the protest site comes a day after a Delhi court modified the conditions imposed on him while granting him bail. He was arrested last month for giving “inflammatory speeches” during an anti-CAA protest at Jama Masjid.
Earlier in the day, BJP MP Vijay Goel had termed the ongoing protests against the Act a “security threat” and those who were a part of it as being “misled”.
