In any places in India, women are the forefront of the Citizenship Act protests. In Bengaluru, the Women India Movement collective organised a protest against the CAA and the proposed NRC in front of Town Hall on Thursday. Some 500 protestors gathered at the venue, Bangalore Mirror reported.

The protest was led by women. “The previous governments used Census data to determine who was allowed to be in this country,” Nasreen, a woman who was previously detained for walking by in a burqa, was quoted as saying by The News Minute. “Why isn’t this government using the Census? If you want to bring the process, you will have to remove Article 14 in the Constitution. We won’t let you do that,”

While the women of Bengaluru came out in large numbers to register their protest, the women of New Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh locality have been staging a similar daily peaceful demonstration for several days now. The peaceful sit-in by the women on New Delhi’s Kalindi Kunj Road near Shaheen Bagh has stopped traffic on the road since December 14, news agency PTI reported.

The women have refused to stop their protests unless the central government announces a complete withdrawal of the recent amendments made to the Citizenship Act and the proposed NRC, the report added.

“When our kids [students of Jamia Millia Islamia University] were beaten up, this is when we decided that the elders also need to support them,” Fatima Sheikh, a resident of Shaheen Bagh, was quoted as saying. “We have been reading prayers, chanting and even shouting slogans all night to lodge our protest. The Act is divisive and if students are protesting, we should support them.”