New Delhi: At around 5 pm on Saturday evening, a man fired a gun at Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh, where a sit-in protest against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and National Register of Citizens has been taking place for over a month.
Bystanders who were at the scene said that the gunshots came from behind the barricades in the direction of Jasola Vihar. The barricades have been set up to block off the road. The area beyond the barricades is where the police has had a sustained presence since the start of the protests. Nobody has been injured.
According to reports, a man brandishing a gun jumped over the barricade (behind which the police was) and fired a warning shot in the air. After volunteers from Shaheen Bagh moved towards him, he fired another shot. A volunteer at the site, on a video, says that they were able to overpower the shooter when it appeared that his gun had been unable to fire, and the shooter threw his gun into the nearby bushes. It was only after that that the police arrived.
“I was standing at the foot over bridge when I heard a gunshot,” said Umar Para. “I’m from Kashmir. We know what gunshots sound like.” He then went towards the area, where a fellow protester had gathered a cartridge from the gun. In a video, the shooter identifies himself as one Kapil Gurjar, from Dallapura village near Noida.
The police then appeared to take away the shooter in a private vehicle. As the police were taking the shooter away, the shooter said, “Jai Shri Ram!”
When a man in the audience asked him why he had shot, he is seen on video replying, “Hamare desh mein aur kiski nahin chalegi, sirf Hinduon ki chalegi (In our country, only Hindus can have their way, not anyone else).” The shooter is now reportedly in police custody.
A bystander who was in the area at the time said that the gunshots caused widespread panic and chaos, with a near-stampede situation taking place in the narrow lanes through which people can exit.
Meanwhile, at a rally in Rohini in northwest Delhi, UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath alleged that those who support terrorists in Kashmir are staging protest at Shaheen Bagh and raising slogans of ‘azadi’. At another rally, he went on to say, “Their ancestors divided India, so they have a grouse against this emerging ‘Ek Bharat Shrestha Bharat’.”
“These protests happening at various places in Delhi are not about the CAA, but it is happening because those people are questioning as to how can India emerge as a major power in the world, and to stop that rising India,” he claimed.
The shooting at Shaheen Bagh comes two days after a Hindutva supporter opened fire at Jamia Millia Islamia students protesting against the CAA outside the university. One student was injured in the attack.
This is a developing story, more details will be added as they come to light.