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Kerala Woman, Friend Who Protested CAA And Amit Shah In Delhi Hounded By Mob, Evicted

The women say they were threatened by a mob after they put up a protest banner outside their balcony during Amit Shah’s visit to Lajpat Nagar.
Amit Shah seen during his door-to-door campaign under Jan Jagran Abhiyan on Citizenship Amendment Act at C-Block, Lajpat Nagar Part-2, on January 5, 2020, in New Delhi.
Hindustan Times via Getty Images
Amit Shah seen during his door-to-door campaign under Jan Jagran Abhiyan on Citizenship Amendment Act at C-Block, Lajpat Nagar Part-2, on January 5, 2020, in New Delhi.

Two women — a Malayali advocate and her friend — were evicted from their rented flat in Delhi’s Lajpat Nagar for protesting against the CAA and NRC during home minister Amit Shah’s door to door campaign in the area on Sunday, multiple reports said.

The women, identified as Surya Rajappan from Kerala and Harmita from Uttar Pradesh, say they were threatened by a mob after they put up a protest banner outside their balcony during Shah’s visit.

Their banner, made with implements at home, read “Shame Shah”, “Not in my name”, and had crossed out signs of CAA and NRC. The two women shouted “Go back” from their balcony as Shah visited the house next door, according to Malayala Manorama.

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Shah was visiting homes in Lajpat Nagar on Sunday as part of BJP’s door-to-door campaign to dispel “misinformation” about the Citizenship Amendment Act. According to PTI, he visited nine homes and a temple in the area, distributed literature on the subject and urged people to take out their mobile phones to give a missed call to the toll-free CAA number the BJP has launched.

In a statement released later, Rajappan said a mob of 150 people gathered below their building and threatened the two women for protesting.

Rajappan, who said the women had not expected the violent reaction, wrote: “They were evidently enraged and threatened by the simple act of two girls protesting peacefully to tackle what they perceived as an obvious threat to their propaganda parade,” she wrote.

Rajappan said the two women locked themselves up in their home, fearing for their lives, after a group that had broken apart from the mob forced its way up the stairs to their house and threatened to break down their door.

Friends that they called for help were threatened and manhandled by the crowd outside their house, she said.

While the women called the police for help, their landlord, who was also part of the mob, told them they had been evicted, Rajappan said.

After seven hours, the women were finally able to leave with their essential belongings after the arrival of Rajappan’s father and interventions by the police, the statement said.

Their landlord told Indian Express that he did not know where the women were now, calling them an “inconvenience to everyone.”

“I shouldn’t have made them my tenants in the first place,” he told the daily.

In her statement, Rajappan wrote: “We are privileged, educated young professionals living in the heart of the national capital of the country, and this is what we had to undergo for exercising our rights. I shudder to imagine the atrocities being perpetrated on the defenseless and voiceless millions across Kashmir, UP and interior India in our name, and who are deliberately and systematically excluded from the lens of the mainstream media.”

You can read here full statement below:

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