New Delhi: A burqa-clad woman was whisked away on Wednesday morning by police at Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh – the heart of protests against Citizenship (Amendment) Act or CAA – after her presence at the site of round-the-clock sit-in raised suspicion.
The woman – identified as Gunja Kapoor – raised suspicion when she kept asking “too many questions”, said eyewitnesses. Some protesters insisted on frisking her and found a camera. This led to a commotion and she was caught by several women. Later, police came to the protest site and took her away.
Gunja Kapoor, who describes herself as the curator of a YouTube channel ‘Right Narrative’, is followed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP leader Tejasvi Surya on Twitter. On being asked by reporters why she was carrying a camera, Gunja flipped and said: “This is not media’s hot moment. Go!”
Visuals showed the woman surrounded by protesters as police tried to pacify them.
The latest incident comes after three separate incidents of shooting near sites of anti-CAA protests in Delhi were reported last week.
A shot was fired outside the Jamia Millia Islamia University in south Delhi on Sunday night. The police said some students told them that a shot was fired at the university gate, 2 km from Shaheen Bagh, where protesters have set up a tent on the road and dug in for nearly two months in protest against the CAA.
This came a day after a 25-year-old man, identified as Kapil Gujjar, allegedly shouted “Jai Sri Ram” as he fired shots standing near police barricades put up near the protest site. Kapil Gujjar is an AAP member, police said on Tuesday. The statement has triggered a war of words between the AAP and the BJP ahead of February 8 assembly elections.
The first incident of shooting was reported on January 30 when a teenage shooter fired at protesters near Jamia Millia Islamia University. Dozens of policemen in riot gear watched as he kept waving his gun at unarmed protesters and shouting threats.
The shootings have taken place in quick succession after controversial slogans of “Goli Maaro Sa***n Ko (shoot the traitors)” were chanted last week at a Delhi campaign rally of Anurag Thakur, the Union Minister of State for Finance.
Protests have swept the country against the CAA or the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, which makes religion a criterion for citizenship. Critics say 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.
