Why Shaheen Bagh protesters not dying from cold: Ghosh

Known for his penchant to kick up controversies, BJP West Bengal chief Dilip Ghosh has wondered why none of those protesting against the CAA and NRC under the open sky in the bone chilling cold at Delhi's Shaheen Bagh have fallen sick or died.

Ghosh also sought to know the source of funding of the Shaheen Bagh protests as also those on sit-in at Park Circus in Kolkata.

Hundreds of women are on a sit-in protest at the Shaheen Bagh since December 15 against the CAA. People from nearby areas have also been visiting the protest site from time to time.

Speaking to mediapersons here, Ghosh said: "Women and children holding a sit-in protest against the CAA, are sitting under the open sky in these cold winter nights in Delhi. I wonder why none of them has taken ill.

"Why is it that nothing is happening to them? Why has not a single protester died there?

Describing the entire thing as "totally absurd", he wondered whether the protesters have "ingested some sort of nectar that nothing is happening to them."

He asked where from the Shaheen Bagh and Park Circus protesters are getting the money to sustain their sit-ins.

On January 7, taking a page out of the Shaheen Bagh gathering, some women from the largely muslim neighbourhood Park Circus started a protest against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, a proposed nationwide National Register of Citizens and the National Population Register exercise, as also the "state repression" on the anti-CAA protesters in Uttar Pradesh.

The protest has continued with a large number of people belonging to all sections of people joining in.

"I wonder where the money is coming from. In the coming days the truth regarding this will certainly be known," Ghosh said.

Earlier this month, Ghosh had threatened to "beat up" and "shoot" those protesting against the CAA.

He also dubbed intellectuals protesting against the legislation "creatures", "devils" and "parasites".

In the past, Ghosh had drawn flak after he termed Nobel laureate economist Amartya Sen as "spineless" and claimed that people like him "can be purchased and sold".

( With inputs from IANS )