Gunman shoots at Jamia Millia students marching towards Rajghat, wounds one

A student of Delhi’s Jamia Millia Islamia University was shot by a gunman on Thursday afternoon. A video doing the rounds on social media shows the gunman brandishing a countrymade pistol and telling a group of protesters on the road outside the university, "Yeh lo Azadi. Hindustan zindabad. Delhi police zindabad.” Here is your Azadi. Hail India. Hail Delhi police.

The wounded student has been identified as Shadab Farooq, 23, who is studying for a master’s degree in Mass Communication. He was hit in his hand, and was taken to the nearby Holy Family Hospital.

The gunman has been identified as Rambhakt Gopal.

Amna Asif, a BA Economics student in Jamia who accompanied Shadab to the hospital, told Newslaundry he was being moved to the Trauma Center at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi. “We were a bit ahead of other people and not many people were present there as we were leading the march. A ruthless man comes out from the crowd and starts shouting. He shot without looking at us. It could have been anybody,” Amna added.

Jamia’s students have been protesting for over a month now against the citizenship law and the National Register of Citizens as also against last month’s police brutality on the campus. Today, the students were to march from the university to Rajghat to mark the death anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.

“We had just started to march towards Rajghat. After reaching Gate No 1, we tried to assess the police presence and see if we would be able to carry on,” said Aftab Ahmad, who was in the march. “Suddenly, a man walked towards us with a gun in his hand. He was shouting and threatening us. He stood just about 30 meters from the police barricade, which had been put up to stop the progress of our march. He opened fire, injuring one of our brothers. He was immediately arrested by the police.”

The Jamia Coordination Committee, which has been helping organise the protests, has demanded that the police find out and reveal which organisation the shooter belongs to.

Sunny Singh, another protester said, “On the same day some years ago, they shot Gandhi. Today, a man with a gun shot a Jamia student. Police did nothing except watch as this guy waved a gun outside Jamia Millia Islamia University. It could have been preplanned.”Calling for a march against the Delhi police, he added, "We should organise a march as soon as possible against the Delhi police to register cases of negligence. We should also have cases filed against BJP minister Anurag Thakur and MP Pravesh Singh Varma for inciting violence."

Condemning the violent act, Laraib Neyazi, one of the organisers of the Jamia protest, said, "First of all, our movement is peaceful and will remain so. We have been protesting for the past 48 days. There have been various attempts to defame our protests from the start. But our fight is simply against the law, it is not against the police or the government. It’s against this law which aims to break the unity of our country."

He added, "We simply wanted to pay tribute to Mahatma Gandhi today but the police wouldn’t give us permission. These tactics are being used to divert attention from the matter.” He said their protest would “only grow”.

Chinmoy Biswal, deputy commissioner of police, South East Delhi, confirmed the gunman had been detained.