As a crowd of protesters swelled around them under the watchful eyes of dozens of policemen in riot gear, a cluster of young female students in burqas stood outside their university in New Delhi shouting anti-government slogans.
"What is happening in the country is wrong," Shabana, a 21-year-old student at Jamia Millia Islamia University, said through the veil covering her face. Jamia Millia is a major public university in the capital where a large number of Muslims study. "They can't suppress our voices."
As protests in India against a new citizenship law that critics say targets Muslims grow by the day, they have drawn many women and girls — some housewives, some students with hijabs covering their hair, and others in full-length burqa robes — in a rare sign of public anger against the government.