Congress spokesperson and social activist Sadaf Jafar, who was at the Khureji protest in New Delhi against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act on Tuesday, 14 January, told The Quint that CAA is not against Muslims, rather “it is against humanity.”
“It is against basic essence of Indianness, so every Indian should be scared. It is against against common sense,” she said.
Over a thousand people gathered in East Delhi's Khureji neighbourhood to protest against CAA and a possible pan-India National Register of Citizens.
Raising slogans of "Aazadi", "Inquilab Zindabad" and "Aawaaz do hum ek hain", an estimated 1,500 people, including women and children, gathered for the second day at a local park.
Jafar was picked up by police while participating in a protest in Lucknow on 19 December. Incidentally, her arrest was captured on video as she was live on Facebook during the protest. She was released from jail on 7 January.
“What should I be scared of? Now everything is out in the open. Being a responsible citizen of the country, what I should have been scared of is getting illegally detained, The kind of acts that they put me under, police brutality, calling me a rioter. I must thank Yogi ji for taking that fear out of me.”Sadaf Jafar after her release
Talking about the police brutality, she had said she was continuously addressed as ‘Pakistani’ and ‘tum log’.
“I was brutally beaten. I was continuously called a Pakistani. It hit me for the first time when they addressed me as tum log,” Jafar had added.
The police’s treatment of Jafar following her arrest spurred outrage after her family, speaking to The Quint, had then said that she was “beaten up and tortured” in custody.
Further, she had said that she wouldn’t question judiciary because it’s due to judiciary that she is out on bail and mentioned that the “conscience of judiciary is still alive.”
On the gestures shown by Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi while Jafar was in jail, she said, “Priyanka gandhi stepped in a manner that I can never call it political. My children have her personal number. She was talking to them. She was sending gifts for them. She was sending books with little notes scribbled on them to be courageous.”
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)