The sparkle of Nargis’s gold nose stud cannot match that of her smile, which imparts a cheery glow to the conversation we are having in her third-floor apartment in Delhi’s Khureji Khas locality. We are discussing her husband Khalid Saifi, a founder of United Against Hate, who languishes in the Capital’s Mandoli Jail. At the centre table is Mariyam, 8, busy doing her homework. Nargis’s sons—Yasa, 13, and Taha, 12—are away at a boarding school in Kerala. I point to Mariyam, with trepidation, and Nargis smiles and says, “She has seen everything.”

On February 26, 2020, the Delhi Police picked up Khalid from the Khureji Khas sit-in against the Citizenship Amendment Act. Next morning, Nargis went to meet him at Mandoli Jail. He was brought to her in a wheelchair, with both legs plastered, two fingers broken and tufts from his beard plucked out. His sight threw her into a numbing daze.