Safoora Zargar: Why did India jail a pregnant student during Covid-19? By Geeta Pandey
It was 2:30 in the afternoon when a group of policemen arrived at Safoora
Zargar's home in south-east Delhi. The 27-year-old sociology
student at the prestigious Jamia Milia Islamia university was taking a nap, her
husband, who didn't want to be named, told the BBC. The couple had married
19 months ago, and Ms Zargar had discovered just weeks earlier that she was
pregnant. "She'd been
suffering from nausea and was generally feeling lethargic," he said.
The officers told them
they were from the "special cell" - the anti-terror wing of the Delhi
police - and asked her to go with them to their office in central Delhi. They said they wanted
to ask her some questions about her involvement in protests against a
controversial citizenship law that critics say is discriminatory towards
Muslims. At the police station
Ms Zargar was questioned for several hours, and at 22:30 she was arrested. That
was on Friday 10 April.
So for a month now,
she's been lodged in Delhi's overcrowded Tihar jail - at a time when India is
under a strict lockdown to fight the coronavirus pandemic and the government's
own advisory says pregnant women are particularly vulnerable to infection. Ms Zargar has been
charged under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) - a draconian law
that makes it nearly impossible for the accused to get bail. Since her arrest,
she's been allowed to make two five-minute calls each to her husband and her
lawyer. She has been denied both visits and letters on account of Covid-19
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