Bravery award winner writes to SC to prevent children from being involved in protests

In the letter, national bravery award winner Zen Gunratan Sadavarte said that children and infants should not be allowed to participate in such protests and agitation as this amounts to torture and cruelty.

Zen is a twelve-year-old girl who received a bravery award from the President this year for showing exemplary courage in the Crystal Tower fire incident in Mumbai in 2018 and saving 17 lives including her parents' in the fire incident.

The girl from Mumbai has approached the CJI saying that the death of four-month-old Mohammed Jahan occurred due to atrocious suffering while participation in agitation with its parents at Shaheen Bagh against Citizenship Amendment Act and sought direction for an investigation into the death.

The letter said Right to Life provided under Article 21 was violated of a four-month-old infant who died because of severe cold and congestion as his mother accompanied him every day to Shaheen Bagh protest.

"The Shaheen Bagh protesters include women, senior citizens, newborn babies and children ignoring the fact that newborn babies need a lot of attention and care as they cannot express their pains in particulars, thereafter also ignoring the conditions unfavourable to the children, they are brought to the protest place which is violative of their child rights and natural justice," the letter said.

She said the infant's parents -- Arif Mohammed and Nazia Arif Mohammed -- and the protest organiser failed to protect the child rights due to which the infant died.

The letter further said that the infant was declared dead on arrival at the hospital and the death certificate issued by the hospital has not mentioned any specific reason for the death.

"Police failed to take cognizance to stop the children to participate in such gathering/ agitation which is harmful to the child's death," it added.

Protests are being held at Shaheen Bagh in New Delhi for almost the past two months against the newly amended citizenship law, which grants citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Parsis, Buddhists and Christians fleeing religious persecution from Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh if they entered India on or before December 31, 2014.