In a touching reunion, 18-month-old baby on Thursday got to meet her mother after staying away from her for 14 days.
The breast-feeding toddler, now popular as Champak, remained separated from her activists parents — Ekta Shekhar and Ravi Shekhar — after the duo, along with 57 others, were arrested for participating in protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in Varanasi’s Benia area on December 19.
After spending around two weeks in jail, the court of additional district judge (seventh) Sarvesh Kumar Pandey on Wednesday granted bail to the 56 accused persons, also ordering them to deposit a bail bond of ₹25,000 each. Advocate Srinath Tripathi and Anil Kumar Singh pleaded on behalf of the accused persons in the court.
While Ekta was released from the district jail on Thursday morning, Champak’s father and others were likely to be released by late evening, confirmed district jail superintendent Pavan Trivedi.
“I missed my daughter badly. Every moment, every day. It was really tough for me. I was quite worried about the health of my daughter because I am breast-feeding her. As a mother, it was the toughest time of my life,” Ekta said as she got back to normal life.
“Environmental activist Sania Anwar and I were kept in a single barrack. Whenever I got disheartened, Sania used to console me. I wept many times,” said Ekta with her daughter in her lap.
{{/usCountry}}“Environmental activist Sania Anwar and I were kept in a single barrack. Whenever I got disheartened, Sania used to console me. I wept many times,” said Ekta with her daughter in her lap.
{{/usCountry}}“Living away from my daughter was like an exile,” she said, turning emotional every now and then.
Asked about her days in jail, she said all the inmates were served meal twice - noon and evening. They were also given tea twice a day. After getting a similar vegetable for three days, when she and other inmates protested, the jail administration changed the menu and served them seasonal vegetables. They were also offered extra blankets in view of cold.
Earlier, Congress leaders, including former minister Ajay Rai and Varanasi city unit chief Raghvendra Chaubey, presented a bouquet to Ekta when she came out of jail.
Police had arrested 59 people for protesting against the CAA in Benia Bagh area on December 19. Later a case was registered against them and they were sent to the jail.
Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Wednesday had criticised the Uttar Pradesh government for arresting the protesters. In a series of tweets, she had said that it was the moral duty of the government to allow the mother of the child to go home.
“The BJP government has shown such inhumanity to suppress the civil demonstrations that a small child has been separated from her parents. Even when the baby fell ill, it didn’t make any difference to the ruling BJP government,” she said.