After two months of the protest at Shaheen Bagh, a promising development came on Sunday as the women who were protesting at the venue against the contentious Citizenship Amendment Act led a march to the residence of Home Minister Amit Shah with the aim to discuss the law.
However, the march was stopped by the police claiming that they did not have permission for the march.
As per the reports, heavy security was deployed at Home Minister’s residence to counter the marching crowd. Police personnel were dressed in riot gear standing 500 meters away to stop the protesters.
“We have asked protesters who are in the delegation which wants to meet home minister Amit Shah today, so we can plan a meeting. But they said that they all want to go. We have denied that, but we will see what we can do,” news agency ANI quoted a senior officer as saying.
As reported by Indian Express, in a letter to the protesters, the New Delhi district police had said the march will pass through two more districts and request for it has been sent to the police headquarters for further appropriate actions.
It further added that the police had asked the protesters at Shaheen Bagh to give details of the delegation for its meeting with the Union Home Minister. In response, the protesters said 4000 to 5000 demonstrators would be marching towards his residence.
The move came after the Amit Shah at Times Now Summit had given an open invitation to the protesters at Shaheen Bagh to have a talk with him on the Act.
Shah had said that anyone with doubts over CAA could seek an appointment from his office and he would be willing to meet them within the next three days.
Shaheen Bagh has been the epicenter of the anti-CAA protest as the protesters have been sitting at the venue since December 15 demanding the withdrawal of the Act which they alleged to be anti-Muslim.
Due to the protest, the road connecting Noida with Kalindi Kunj has been blocked. A few days back, a protest countering Shaheen Bagh protest was launched demanding the removal of the blockade.
Shaheen Bagh had become a poll agenda of BJP during the recently concluded Delhi Assembly polls as it took the issue to launch an attack on ruling AAP.
However, multiple controversial statements were made by BJP leaders including Minister of State Anurag Thakur, West Delhi MP Parvesh Verma and Model Town constituency BJP candidate Kapil Mishra during the election campaign.