KOZHIKODE: Aysha Renna, Ladeeda Farzana and Shaheen Abdulla, three Keralite students of Jamia Millia Islamia University, have become the faces of resistance now.
The protest against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) kick-started by Jamia students and the way the three bravely fought police excesses in their university have had reverberations across the country.
TNIE caught up with the students, who were here to participate in a programme, titled ‘Festival of Ideas and Resistance’, on Friday.
“Many brutal atrocities on the protesters are going unreported in Uttar Pradesh. Mohammad Sageer, an eight-year-old boy, was playing in Varanasi’s Bajardiha area when a crowd came running to protect themselves from the police. Sageer died of police baton-charge,” laments Shaheen, an MA Convergent Journalism student who hails from Villyapally near Vadakara.
Aysha, MA History student from Kondotty, told TNIE that BJP’s round-the-clock functioning IT Cell focuses more on her alleged “Islamic politics” rather than the issue the students raised.
“The comment about Yakub Memon in my Facebook page in 2015 has been used by the BJP IT personnel now to deflect the attention from what is actually happening today against Muslims and other minority sections,” said Aysha.
The BJP alleges that Aysha had, in her post, sympathised with Memon, who was hanged four years back. Further speaking on her Islamic politics, Ladeeda said that identity does matter.
“Why Muslims are criticised even when they express their religious views in a peaceful manner through social media?” she asked.
Later, speaking at the function organised by Students Islamic Organisation (SIO), the three students, including Ladeeda, BA Arabic student from Kannur, said they would not be satisfied even if the CAA-NRC plans are dropped, but they would uphold the politics of SIO till BJP steps down.
Sanna Irshad Mattoo, a journalist from Kashmir, was among the speakers.