New Delhi: The Supreme Court asked a Delhi BJP leader on Tuesday to approach its mentioning officer to get an early date for hearing of his plea seeking the removal of hundreds of anti-citizenship law protesters occupying a road-stretch in Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh area.
The apex court’s reaction to this particular petition was at odds with its stance on January 9, when it said that it will take up the petition challenging the constitutional validity of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act only after the countrywide agitation stops.
Notably, the Shaheen Bagh protests have been made the target of severely violent rhetoric by BJP leaders, who have in Delhi election campaign rallies asked for traitors to be shot and focused singularly on the protests at the site. The protests at Shaheen Bagh are led largely by Muslim women.
BJP MP Parvesh Verma had called the protesters ‘rapists and murderers‘ while former BJP president and Union home minister Amit Shah has repeatedly brought up the protests in rallies where he alleged Aam Aadmi Party was responsible for the protests.
On February 1, an armed man opened fire at the protest site. The shooter had chanted ‘Jai Shri Ram’ and said, “In our country, only Hindus can have their way, not anyone else.” The Delhi police has claimed that the shooter is a member of the Aam Aadmi Party. His family has denied this claim.
Recently, as many as 175 organisations, women and men – from across various fields of profession and activism – wrote an open letter urging Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take note of the charged rhetoric that BJP leaders have been employing against anti-Citizenship Amendment Act protesters.
‘Traffic congestion’
BJP leader Nand Kishore Garg has urged the top court for an urgent hearing, citing the difficulty faced by residents due to the nearly-two-month-long protest on a road connecting Delhi and Noida. Arterial roads of Delhi have been facing traffic congestion due the protest, he has alleged.
Independent accounts on social media, however, have held that the protest site is accessible for ambulances.
To clear the confusion about the ambulance and Shaheen Bagh, here is a video that I shot where the ambulance is given way by Shaheen Bagh protesters. They have been doing this on a regular basis. https://t.co/H99q2FqfJ1
— Zafar Abbas (@zafarabbaszaidi) February 3, 2020
Restrictions have allegedly been imposed on the Kalindi Kunj-Shaheen Bagh stretch and Okhla underpass since December 15, when hundreds of women sat on a protest against the amended law and the violence meted out to protesters by police.
“You go to the mentioning officer,” the SC bench headed by Chief Justice S.A. Bobde told Garg.
Also read: Weaponising Shaheen Bagh, the BJP’s Last Resort
Saying that the law-enforcement machinery has been “held hostage to the whims and fancies of the protesters”, the plea has sought laying down of guidelines for protests leading to obstruction of public place.
It said the Shaheen Bagh protest is “undoubtedly within the constitutional parameter” but it has lost its legality as constitutional protections were being “blatantly and brazenly flouted and violated.”
The State has a duty to protect the fundamental rights of its citizens, who have been facing trouble due to the road blockade, it said.
“Hence, it is urgently required that the public places must not be allowed to be abused and misused for ulterior and mala fide purposes such as staging protest against the constitution amendment in the heart of the capital city and thereby causing incalculable hardships and difficulties to the common people,” it said.
It said a similar plea was filed by another litigant in the Delhi high court, which on January 14 directed the local authority to deal with the situation. The litigant has filed an appeal in the apex court against the high court order and sought supervision of the situation in Shaheen Bagh by a retired Supreme Court judge or a sitting judge of the Delhi high court.
(With PTI inputs)