SC appointed interlocutors hit a wall at Shaheen Bagh

The two Supreme Court appointed interlocutors, lawyers Sanjay Hegde and Sadhana Ramachandran, hit the same wall on Thursday on their second visit to Shaheen Bagh as they had on their first visit the previous day.

While the interlocutors were at pains to explain that their limited brief was to find a solution so that the road block is lifted, protesters stuck to their point that Delhi and Uttar Pradesh Police had blocked three arterial and alternative roads, causing inconvenience; that they were occupying only a small portion of the road.

Despite Hegde’s reassurance, the protesters refused to move from the protest site and insisted that the interlocutors listen to their problems with CAA.

This was supported by former bureaucrat and the first Chief Information Commissioner Wajahat Habibullah. “I had gone around the area on Wednesday and I had realised that three of the roads leading to Shaheen Bagh have been blocked by the Delhi Police and the UP Police has blocked the road to Noida. The protestors are sitting on the side road which passes through Shaheen Bagh. I inspected the alternative routes and took notes,” he added.

The two interlocutors, who refused to speak in the presence of the media and voiced their dissatisfaction at the media coverage, are learnt to have told the protestors that they had come with a limited brief.

The interlocutors told the protesters:

• Is your fear that if you move from here, no one from the government will come and speak to you? We will come. The SC will come and we will place your prayer in front of the SC. We request that all of you trust us.

• The matter of CAA and NRC are currently before the Supreme Court. It will be heard soon. We can’t say now what will happen to the case. We don’t know if the SC will listen to you or to the government. We can’t speak about it.

• SC understands that every citizen has the right to protest. One of the issues is the road and that is why the SC has sent us to talk to you.

• As citizens we don’t want to inconvenience people. We will try to solve the problem, but if it cannot be solved, we will go back to the Supreme Court.

• SC has extended an arm. This is not only about the protest at Shaheen Bagh. SC is looking at protests all over the country.

It was clear that the protestors were expecting some kind of reassurance on the CAA, NPR and NRIC. While people had sat there in biting cold for the past two months, they told the interlocutors, nobody from the Government tried to speak to them or address their concern. When they tried to meet the Union Home Minister, permission was denied.

Why has the Supreme Court not reacted to the detention camps? Why was there no court order on the violence in Jamia Milia? Why isn’t the Supreme Court not concerned about protests taking place across the country?

While the questions flew thick and fast, the irked interlocutors seemed ready to abandon the mission. Sadhana Ramachandran reiterated that a few representatives of the protestors should speak to the interlocutors and not all of them together.

“We are trying to maintain peace but that is not being maintained. We will not be coming tomorrow. We can only come if a separate space where a few women come separately and speak to us. Here we are not able to speak in a peaceful atmosphere. All of you sit and decide how to do this,” she is reported to have said.

Sanjay Hegde said, “We want to console you about CAA and the court will hear the matter. But before the matter is heard, we also have to consider the matter about the road. There are people who have approached the court regarding the closed road. It can’t be ‘My way or the Highway’.”