Over 500 Protesters Block Delhi Road, Vow to Stay Put Till Centre Revokes CAA; Jaffrabad Metro Station Closed

The entry and exit gates of Jaffrabad Metro station were closed on Sunday morning after more than 500 protesters blocked the road below the Metro line and vowed not to end the agitation till the Centre revokes the contentious Citizenship Amendment Act and the National Register of Citizens.

Carrying Tricolours and raising slogans, the protesters, mostly women, had descended at the spot on Saturday night. The road connects Seelampur with Maujpur and Yamuna Vihar.

As protests continued into the morning, heavy security was deployed around the Metro station and the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation said trains would not be halting at the station. "Entry & exit of Jaffrabad have been closed. Trains will not be halting at this station," the DMRC tweeted.

A woman, who identified herself as Bushra, had said that till the time the CAA is not revoked, the protesters would not leave the site.

Social activist Faheem Baig had said there is



resentment among people over the way the government was handling the issue.

"This protest is against CAA, NRC and also seeking reservation for Dalits. The movement is primarily led by the women, while the men are only supporting them,” a protester named Shadab said. "We have blocked the road in order to protest and we will not move from the site till the Centre revokes the draconian law," he said.

The fresh sit-in protest comes at a time when efforts are being made to negotiate with the protesters at Shaheen Bagh whose agitation has resulted in traffic snarls along the Delhi-Noida route. A small stretch of the road closed for over two months was "opened" by a group of demonstrators on Saturday, though police barricades continued on one side.

Protesters claimed that they "opened" the stretch, which would allow passage between Noida and south Delhi, at around 5 pm near the protest site, but the Delhi Police and the Noida police were continuing the barricade from one side restricting access to commuters. The Delhi Police had maintained that it has barricaded adjacent roads due to security reasons.