The police opened the door and stormed into the library. Mantasha Zaman heard glass breaking, people shouting and taking refuge under the tables. The police dragged the refugees by the leg, with sticks and as if in a frenzy, they beat them. "They weren't police officers. They weren't people anymore," Zaman says on the phone. "They were terrorists."
The 17-year-old had protested against the Indian government on Sunday in front of the Jamia Millia Islamia University in Delhi; peaceful, as she emphasizes, and how it is her right. When she heard of riots nearby - radical demonstrators had lit cars and thrown stones - she and her friends decided to move to the security of the university courtyard.
Soon Zaman saw and smelled tear gas. The police had started storming the campus. Zaman and many others ran into the library and locked the door. But the police followed. Soon they started beating people.
"We were your human shield"
"At some point we noticed that the police only hit men, but not us women," says Zaman. "We stood in front of the men. We were their human shield."
There's a video that doesn't show Zaman, but young women like her. It is currently circulating in India: a man is lying on the ground, police officers are beating him with sticks. Five women crowd between them, raising their hands to protect them. They flinch as a policeman lifts the stick. But then the unbelievable happens: The policeman hesitates. He backs away. He gives in small.
It is an impressive picture: five courageous young women with headscarves who put the state in its place.
The scenes have triggered solidarity in many parts of India. Whether in Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Lucknow or Aligarh, young people protested against the government at almost every major university in the country; The police and protesters clashed repeatedly. The trigger is a law that - as the protesters see - "destroys the soul of India".
Premier Modi accuses opposition of lies
The new citizenship law makes it easier for Hindus, Jains, Sikhs, Buddhists, Parsians and Christians from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan to acquire Indian citizenship. For the first time, India, which has always been proud of its diversity and tolerance, is making citizenship based on religion. And it is significant who the law includes - and who does not: namely almost all major religions of South Asia except one - Islam.
The government bases its action on the fact that Muslims are said not to fear persecution. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has accused the opposition of spreading lies. "I assure that no citizen of this country will be affected by the law." But the demonstrators, many of them Muslims themselves, don't believe him.
The law has fueled the fears of many Indian Muslims - at least 200 million people, 14 percent of the population - that they are second-class citizens to the government and that they do nothing in the eyes of Premier Narendra Modi, a self-confessed Hindu nationalist have to look for. The protests are an expression of their fear and anger, and many Indians are with them. In addition, in the north-east of the country, on the border with Bangladesh, many fear the influx of immigrants. Barricades burned there on weekends. The government sent the army to the site and shut down the Internet. At least five people died.
"The government is still extremely popular"
The question now is whether the demonstrations will continue in the coming days and weeks or even gain strength. Can Modi, which is more powerful than any Indian prime minister for around 30 years and has so far been criticized, become a little dangerous for the first time?
Milan Vaishnav, director of the Carnegie Foundation for International Peace's South Asia program, warns that the demonstrations will be spread across India: "The protests have been the biggest social unrest in India since Modi's inauguration in 2014," he says. "But the government is still extremely popular."
Vaishnav believes it is possible for a majority of Indians to even welcome the new citizenship law. India's weakening economy, which recently collapsed, is much more dangerous for Modi's popularity. The Citizenship Act is far behind jobs, low inflation and better access to public services for most Indians on the list of priorities. But Vaishnav does not believe that the government is, as it claims, concerned with the protection of minorities with the new law. He points out the new civil register, which the government is also planning.
"We are Indians, why do we have to prove it?"
Soon every Indian should have to prove that his ancestors come from India and that he is not an illegal immigrant. In Assam, where the trial has already taken place, nearly two million residents have failed to provide proof and are currently concerned about their citizenship. The interior minister announced that thanks to the Citizenship Act, Hindus would not have to worry. And Muslims? He left them out.
Protester Mantasha Zaman fears that the Citizenship Act is part of a larger plan to deprive her and many others of the right to be Indian. Zaman is a Muslim and her family comes from Bihar, a poor state of India that is often hit by floods.
Many like them will find it difficult to get their parentage documents, either because they never had them or because the floods destroyed them. Zaman says: "We are Indians, why do we have to prove it? It's not as if our ancestors had done nothing for this country."