Hours after Jamia Millia Islamia students claimed that two unidentified persons had fired in the air at gate number 5 of of the university late on Sunday night and fled from the spot, the Delhi Police on Monday said it has zeroed in on two suspects whose two-wheeler’s registration number was caught on CCTV cameras.
Two unidentified persons had opened fire during the ongoing protests at Jamia Millia Islamia late on Sunday. Though no one was injured in the incident, there was panic among those present.
Hundreds of protesters laid siege to the Jamia Nagar police station and remained there till around 4 am when the police lodged an FIR against the unknown accused. The police, however, denied that there was any delay in lodging the FIR.
“As usual, the police weren’t taking any complaint and after two to three hours of people shouting slogans and approaching cops inside the police station, the FIR was registered,” claimed Mohd Hafeez, a Jamia student who was at the police station.
“We had taken photographs of the red scooter which the accused had used and based on the same identified its registration number. It is up to police to now verify and see if the owner of the vehicle and the accused are the same or if the accused used someone else’s vehicle,” he said.
“We carried out intensive search of the place where the firing took place near Gate no 7 (of the varsity campus). We found no empty cartridges there. We are, therefore, probing further to identify the accused and verify the crime. The FIR was lodged after due procedure,” in-charge DCP, South East, Gyanesh Kumar said.
The Jamia Nagar police stated that a few persons approached them during the registration of the FIR saying they had seen the red scooter that was allegedly used for the crime.
The police has claimed that no one could capture the full registration number of the two-wheeler. “We have the same series of the vehicle number. However, according to some persons the last digit is 2 while as per some it is 4. There are many vehicles with the same series (registration) and we are now verifying information to see what is the actual number of the vehicle used in the crime,” Jamia Nagar SHO Upendra Singh told PTI.
As per the vehicle registration records, the owner of the two-wheeler with the registration number caught on camera apparently ending with the digit 2 belongs to a man while that ending with 4 belongs to a woman, police said.
The police is cross verifying the CCTV cameras and other videos of the incident captured by some protestors to ascertain whether the number ends with 2 or 4, they said.
Four days ago, a minor was arrested for brandishing a gun and firing at protesters at the Jamia, injuring MCRC student Shadab Farooq. The minor had allegedly shouted, “Yeh lo Azadi”.
Following these incidents, the Election Commission shunted out DCP South East Chinmay Biswal on February 2. Additional DCP Kumar has been handed over the charge of the South East Zone.