Bharatiya Janata Party MP Satish Gautam on Sunday suggested that social activist Sumaiya Rana go to Pakistan as she was feeling suffocated in India, PTI reported. Rana is the daughter of Urdu poet Munawwar Rana.
On Saturday, Sumaiya Rana had said that “coercive measures” taken by the Uttar Pradesh Police in the face of protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act were suffocating for people. She made the remarks at a gathering of women protestors at Eidgah complex in Aligarh. She said police in Lucknow had locked women’s toilets to disperse women protestors at a similar protest site.
Satish Gautam, the MP from Aligarh, told reporters: “Sumaiya should go to Pakistan since she is feeling suffocated in today’s India.”
The BJP leader warned of action against Aligarh Muslim University students who have been protesting against the amended law since December 16. “There are about 150-odd students who are still holding protests at AMU, while the rest have returned to classes,” he said. “They have all been identified by the police now and rest assured they will not be in the campus from the next academic year.”
Some Bharatiya Janata Party leaders and supporters are known to often suggest critics to “go to Pakistan” if they do not support their work. Just after being elected MP in May 2019, Gautam said that one of the first things he wanted to do was to send a decades-old portrait of Pakistan founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah to Pakistan.
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