Amidst all the chaos, there is one video of a group of women protecting a young man from the Delhi Police that has become the face of bravery through the protests. Two of those women are 22-year-old Ayesha Renna & Ladeeda Farzana have been called the unsung heroes of the protest.
In the video, they can be clearly seen protecting a young man, Shaheen from the police. As the two try to save him by pulling him inside the house, he is dragged out by the police. In an interview, Ayesha shared the timeline of the incident.
We were at the back of the group. Around 5.30 pm, we saw people at the front running back and police charging towards us. We went inside the garage of a house and stayed there. There were nine of us girls and one boy. The gate couldn’t be closed because a car was blocking it. A few policemen surrounded us outside and asked us to come out. They said they wouldn’t hit us. We refused but suddenly one of them dragged the boy out and we were pulled out too. They then started hitting all of us with lathis.
-Ayesha Renna told Indian Express
Ayesha is a history student and Ladeeda, a BA Arabic student, both of them hail from Kerala. They revealed in an interview with Barkha Dutt that their families and husbands are quite supportive of them standing up for what is right.
Renna’s husband even shared a Facebook post saying how proud he was of his wife for standing up against the odds.
Twitter is in awe of these two for fearing no one when faced with such extreme amount of violence.
Protests in New Delhi have continued since.