Betwa Sharma: CAA Protesters Fight Public Apathy As Police Brutality is Normalised
“The policewoman
pulled my legs up, she twisted my neck, and my head was down. My dress came
down. Forget the burqa, even my shirt came down…” said Rafia Fatima, as she
spoke of how a march against the Citizenship
Amendment Act (CAA)
descended into chaos on Monday as protesters clashed with the Delhi Police. The 29-year-old
homemaker said that she found herself in that position after she climbed one of
the yellow barricades set up by the Delhi Police and was trying to push past
the “sea” of police personnel, women and men. “I told her ‘don’t do
this to me’. Then she pushed me from the barricades and I fell down,” she
said.
Fatima said that she
landed at the feet of four or five policemen, one of whom kicked her in her
private parts and chest with his shoes. This, she said, continued until another
policeman pulled her up and helped her to the side of the road. “A policeman hit me on
my private parts and chest with his shoes,” said Fatima. “I still cannot
believe it.”
Fatima, who was in
hospital on Tuesday, said that she had internal injuries and a fractured rib
cage. When asked why she
climbed atop a police barricade and tried to push past the police personnel,
Fatima said that she had pleaded with a police officer to let the protestors
carry out their march, even suggesting that they could walk in two lines
from Jamia
Millia Islamia University to the Parliament, with the police
accompanying them.
“What choice do we
have?” she asked. “We want to carry out a peaceful protest, we beg and plead,
but they never give us permission. They are crushing our rights as citizens.” The muted response to
the events on Monday, almost two months after a brutal
crackdown on Jamia students by the Delhi Police, encapsulates the
challenges that protesters face as they try to keep the fight going even after
media and public attention has shifted from the issue.
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