Political analyst Gunja Kapoor was on Wednesday heckled by women at Shaheen Bagh for allegedly ‘taking videos’. She was allegedly wearing a ‘burqa’ and the objection was raised over her trying to cover the protests while wearing one.
Chaos at #ShaheenBaghProtest when a burka clad woman caught while making some video from her mobile. She is found out to a be a YouTuber. Objection was why she was covering the protest wearing burka. @DelhiPolice has detained her pic.twitter.com/W3Ypdey9il
— alok singh (@AlokReporter) February 5, 2020
In the above video one can see Gunja being taken away by Police to safety as angry women heckle and manhandle her.
Context: Here’s the full earlier video. #ShaheenBagh Women asking Gunja why she felt the need to wear a burkha.
courtesy: @wajihulla pic.twitter.com/LSBW716OT3
— Zeba Warsi (@Zebaism) February 5, 2020
In this video, women protestors are angry at Gunja for wearing a burqa while attending the protest. They are objecting that she is wearing a burqa while being a Hindu. She was interrogated by the women at Shaheen Bagh on who provided her a burqa and why was she wearing one.
Which is surprising because many people in the last two months have worn ‘burqa’ to show solidarity with the anti-CAA protestors and were hailed for their efforts towards secularism.
Earlier in January, “Azad women for Azadi” protests were held at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi where women of different faiths wore hijab or burqa.
While these attempts at wearing hijabs and burqas were hailed, Gunja was questioned for the same. Her heckling was then justified by radicals because of her political ideology.
She is a BJP member Gunja Kapoor
Hateful troll
Came for Spying or create unrest or what?? That too in Burqa ? ?— Taqi Ullah (@TaqiUllah16) February 5, 2020
Na pakdi jaati to kisi sting video me nafrat aur afwah faila rhi hoti ab tk
— Hasan Afee (@hasanafee) February 5, 2020
Shaheen Bagh protestors have a very strong protocol where only confirmed media houses are allowed to film. Some media houses are given ‘permission’ to film on condition it will be telecast live. Others are just not allowed. This is a ‘protest’ being held on middle of a road. The entry points through small lanes are guarded where ‘volunteers’ check your bags and if they find you ‘suspicious’, they check for ID proofs. If they feel you are video recording or clicking pictures of things that could go against you, they make you delete them. All this is carried out by ‘volunteers’ and no security agency.
Earlier this week, Gunja was a panelist on a CNN News 18 show with Bhupendra Chaubey when the crowd at Shaheen Bagh went unruly and heckled him and forced them to cut short their show.
OpIndia reached out to Gunja Kapoor for a statement but she was currently unreachable. We shall update our report when we hear back from her.
