New Delhi, Dec 17 (AFP/APP): A group of Muslim women who formed a barricade around a male student being attacked by baton-swinging police have become symbols of the protests currently gripping India. In a video that has gone viral, the four young women rush to surround the young man as police in riot gear thrash at him with six-foot (two-metre) bamboo sticks known as “lathi”. They then point their fingers at the officers and shout “police go back, go back” during the incident in New Delhi on Sunday. The protests, which raged for another day on Tuesday, follow the passing by parliament last week of legislation making it easier for people from three neighbouring countries to get Indian citizenship. Excluded though are Muslims, in what Islamic groups, the opposition and rights groups say is part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s agenda to remould India as a Hindu nation, something he denies. The women from Sunday’s incident have since been interviewed by myriad media, while the finger-wagging image is being used for protest posters and a Chennai artist’s illustration that has spread widely online. “We don’t have any fear of this government, the police or anyone,” one of the women, history … Continue reading Finger-wagging Muslim women become Indian protest symbols