Ishrat Jahan is an Indian practising advocate and former municipal councillor for the

Indian National Congress The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party but often simply the Congress, is a political party in India with widespread roots. Founded in 1885, it was the first modern nationalist movement to emerge in the British Em ...

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders w ...

who is an accused under the

Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act is an Indian law aimed at prevention of unlawful activities associations in India. Its main objective was to make powers available for dealing with activities directed against the integrity and sovereignty o ...

and was granted bail on 14 March 2022 after her incarceration since February 2020.

Biography

Jahan has been a practising advocate with the

Bar Council of Delhi Bar Council of Delhi is the regulatory and statutorily representative body for lawyers practising law in the Union Territory of Delhi. It was constituted as per the mandatory requirement as per Advocates Act, 1961 and Bar Council of India. In Marc ...

since 2006. She was elected a councillor for Jagatpuri (an urban

ward Ward may refer to: Division or unit * Hospital ward, a hospital division, floor, or room set aside for a particular class or group of patients, for example the psychiatric ward * Prison ward, a division of a penal institution such as a pris ...

in Krishna Nagar, Delhi) under the

ticket in 2012. Ishrat Jahan was a prominent activist in the

Citizenship Amendment Act protests The Citizenship Amendment Act (Bill) protests, also known as the CAA Protest, CAB Protest or CAA and NRC protests, occurred after the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) was enacted by the Government of India on 12 December 2019. The move sparked ...

that began on 13 January 2020. She was arrested on 26 February 2020 along with two other activists on a variety of charges. Lawyers from the Indian Civil Liberties Union and the Human Rights Law Network who went to the police station to seek their release were allegedly beaten by police. After Jahan was granted bail on 21 March 2020, she was arrested again the same day for charges related to the

(UAPA). Ishrat Jahan was accused of giving provocative speeches leading up to the violence that rocked northeast Delhi in February 2020 during the

. In May 2020, she was granted ten days bail to get married in June 2020. Ishrat married Farhan Hashmi on 12 June 2020. Thereafter, she was denied interim bail and returned to jail on 19 June. On 31 July 2020, her appeal to the Delhi High Court against a trial court order granting the police more time to file a chargesheet was denied. She was again denied bail on 27 November 2020. She was lodged at the Mandoli jail until March 2022, where she complained of being harassed on a regular basis and beaten by the inmates in at least two incidents (in November and December 2020). A district court judge noted that Jahan was in a state of "utter fear" and directed jail authorities to provide security to her. On 14 March 2022, Jahan got bail in all pending cases against her. After she was released, she continued to assert that she has been wrongly accused and that the anti-CAA protests were not linked to violence.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jahan, Ishrat Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Activists from Delhi Indian women activists People involved in the Citizenship Amendment Act protests

Biography

Further reading

References