For the last three days, hundreds of Muslim women are sitting in Rampur’s Jama Masjid demanding the release of their husbands, brothers and children who were arrested after the protest against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act turned violent on December 21 last year.
“Their demand is that the protest was called by the ulemas of Rampur and they should intervene now to get the 34 people out of jail,” said advocate Shaila Khan, who is president of the Rampur Chapter of Indian Lawyers Association. She said the protesters went out of control because their leaders were forced to stay at home by the district administration.
An FIR has been registered by the police against 116 named and around 3,000 unnamed persons after the protest in which one person was killed.
Many of them say their kin were innocent and were lifted just to fill the list of unnamed protesters.
‘Only earning member’
Mothers of cousins Shahnawaz and Sharooz, Rizwana and Nazma said their 17-18-year-old sons were lifted when they were having their meals. Rizwana said her husband had suffered hemorrhage after that. Shabnam whose husband Pappu was picked up by the police said he was the only earning member in the family and she had not been able to feed her one-year-old child properly.
The women are holding placards that reject the CAA and thw NRC and this has possibly irked the clergy as the senior members suggest that a mosque was not a place of protest. Ms. Khan said there was a sense of fear among the clergy as well as they felt that the police could detain them as well.
Qualifying the protest as an appeal to get their men released, Muqarram Inayati, Secretary of Jama Masjid, told The Hindu that the appeal for a protest on December 21 was taken back by the ulemas on the evening of December 20 under sustained pressure from the district administration. “However, the message could not reach everybody and people gathered on December 21 to protest. The administration had to call the ulemas to request the protesters to return.”
He said Maulvi Mehboob Ali and other members of the clergy had met the District Magistrate on Wednesday and he promised of a “positive outcome” in 3-4 days.
Arun Kumar Singh, Additional Superintendent of Police, Rampur, said 34 persons are in judicial custody.
“The investigation is on. We can’t give a timeline, it is for the court to decide,” he said.
Ms. Khan, who fought the Municipal Corporation Chairman election on a Bahujan Samaj Party ticket, clarified that her support to the women protesters was only as a lawyer and social activist and had no political motive.
