'In next 10 days, 5,000 Shaheen Baghs will come up across nation': Chandrashekhar Azad extends support to women protesting against CAA, NRC

New Delhi: In the next 10 days, there will be 5,000 more protest sites like Shaheen Bagh across the country, Bhim Army chief Chandrashekhar Azad said on Wednesday evening as he reached the iconic demonstration spot in south Delhi to extend his support to the women protesting against Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens for Assam (NRC).

Addressing a massive gathering, the Dalit leader said the CAA is a “black law” that is dividing people on religious lines.

“I congratulate those who have participated in this protest. This is not just a political agitation. We have to save the Constitution and unity of the nation,” he told the women who have been staging a sit-in against the CAA for more than a month now.

Azad said even the record-breaking cold has not been able to break the will power of the women protesters.

The crowd, singing Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s Urdu poem Hum Dekhenge before Azad’s arrival, got charged as he reached the venue.

Holding the Constitution, he said, “I promise you that in next 10 days there will be at least 5,000 Shaheen Baghs across the country”.

Azad said that earlier everyone had heard about Jallianwala Bagh, but now they were talking about Shaheen Bagh. “If you have the courage of sacrifice, then you have to sacrifice with holding your demonstration peacefully,” he said.

“Till the Bhim Army is here, this law would not be applicable and they have to go through my corpse (to implement it),” Azad said.

“The court is saying that we should respect our prime minister. I do and and I will do because the constitution says this. But the Prime Minister also needs to respect the constitution of this country,” he said.

The protesters hailed Azad and raised slogans in his support.

He said when he was in Tihar jail, he read the newspapers to know about the situation of women sitting on protest at Shaheen Bagh.

His visit to Shaheen Bagh comes a day after a Delhi court modified the conditions imposed on him while granting him bail. He was arrested in December, 2019, for giving “inflammatory speeches” during an anti-CAA protest at Jama Masjid in Delhi.

The court allowed him to visit Delhi for medical reasons and election purposes. It also directed Azad to register his presence to the Station House Officer (SHO) of Fatehpur police station in Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh, every Saturday for four weeks and on the last Saturday of every month.