The National Bravery Award winner has claimed that the incident was a violation of the infant's right to life under Article 21 of the Constitution
Four-month-old Mohammed Jahaan's mother had carried him almost every day to the Shaheen Bagh protest till January 30, when the cold weather in Delhi got to him.
The infant passed away in his sleep after acquiring severe cold and congestion following exposure to the winter chill at the outdoor demonstration, reports suggest.
While Jahaan’s death did not change his mother Nazia’s mind, who reportedly remains undeterred and determined to continue protesting, it shook a twelve-year-old National Bravery Award winner.
Zen Gunratan Sadavarte, a recipient of the 2019 Indian Council for Child Welfare (ICCW) National Bravery Award, has written to Chief Justice of India (CJI) SA Bobde seeking directions to prevent children from participating in demonstrations, claiming that it "amounts to cruelty".
Sadavarte, a student of Class 7 from Mumbai, has in the letter to the CJI Office said that the parents of the four-month-old and the organisers of the anti-CAA sit-in at Shaheen Bagh "failed" to protect the rights of the kid, resulting in his death.
"The Shaheen Bagh protesters at New Delhi, include women, senior citizens, new-borns and children, ignoring the fact that new-born babies need a lot of attention and care as they cannot express their pains in particulars thereafter also ignoring the conditions unfavourable to the children, they are brought to the protest place which is violative of their child rights and natural justice," Sadavarte has said in the letter.
Sadavarte has also alleged that the police failed to stop children from participating in agitations harmful to their health. Sadavarte expressed surprise over even the death certificate of the four-month-old reportedly not mentioning the cause of death.
Releasing the letter to the media, she claimed that the incident was a violation of the infant's right to life under Article 21 of the Constitution.
Sadavarte had received the National Bravery Award for guiding 17 people to safety when a fire broke out at Parel's Crystal Tower in 2018.
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