A 12-year-old bravery award winner has written to the Chief Justice of India SA Bobde to prohibit the involvement of children and infants in the Shaheen Bagh protests following the tragic news of the death of a four-month-old due to exposure to extreme weather conditions.
Zen Gunratan Sadavarte, in her letter petition, has termed the inclusion of children and infants in the protests “amounting to torture and cruelty.”
Also seeking an investigation into the actual cause of death, Zen has said that the organizers of the protests failed to protect child rights.
The petition also points out that the police failed to take cognizance of the inclusion of children and infants in the overnight sit-ins.
Sadavarte, a class seven student from Mumbai, received the National Bravery Award on Republic Day this year. She helped save several lives when a fire broke out at an apartment in the city in August 2018.
Protests – some violent, some not – against the CAA are based on the idea, as law critics say, that the law discriminates against Muslims as only non-Muslims from neighbouring Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh can become Indian citizens if they fled religious persecution and entered India before 2015. Pro-CAA activists, however, look at the same law as welcoming the stateless refugees in its fold.
Critics of the protest have attacked the nearly two-month-long sit-in on a key road in Delhi connecting Noida. They say the protest has become a traffic nightmare for commuters.
— India Legal Bureau