Jamia shooter ‘shows no remorse’

GREATER NOIDA: “He’s talking nonsense that whatever he has done is correct,” says the grandfather of the boy who brandished a gun at Citizenship Amendment Act protesters near Jamia Millia Islamia on January 30 and shot at a student.
Relatives of the boy, who is in 'protective custody' because he is a minor, say he has shown little sign of remorse for the act, apparently telling family members whatever he had done was “for the sake of the country”. Only his parents are allowed to meet him. A family friend said the parents were looking for a lawyer to get the boy out on bail. The account of the boy's meeting with his parents was shared by his grandfather with this correspondent on Monday.
Source said the shooter’s links with Deepak Sharma, who calls himself the leader of a fringe outfit called Rashtriya Swabhiman Dal, were being investigated as the boy had uploaded a photo showing him and Sharma together as his profile picture on Facebook.
Sharma is a name the police know well. The National Security Act (NSA) was invoked against him following clashes between Indian and Afghan students at Sharda University in 2018. Sharma was accused of orchestrating those clashes. He was detained for “disrupting public order” with allegedly inflammatory videos and remarks.
Asked whether he knew the shooter, Sharma sought to distance himself, saying he barely knew him. “The picture is of a protest where the juvenile had participated. I do not even remember what exactly had happened. I got a call from the investigators, who asked me if I knew the youth. There are around 500 profiles like this,” he said.
Sharma, however, added that he did not support the boy’s act of shooting at a protester.
Row over age
The controversy over the shooter’s age continued on Monday, when a second image of an electoral slip was uploaded on Twitter. On Sunday, too, a similar poll slip had been uploaded on the social networking site, leading to claims that he was aged over 18 years and hence could not be treated as a juvenile in the eyes of the law. The names and other details in both the images uploaded back to back were similar, except for the EPIC (electoral photo identity card) number.
Though both the slips had the same name as that of the accused, the name of the father did not match. The shooter’s relatives claimed there was no one in their family by the name that was mentioned against the father in the slips. Apart from the electoral slips, a voter slip with the same details was uploaded on Twitter.
A relative said they had handed over to a Delhi Police team all documents that showed his date of birth as April 8, 2002. Delhi Police is in charge of the investigation. “The crime branch officers had arrived here on Saturday and took documents that were proof of his actual age, including the CBSE marksheet,” an uncle of the boy said.
Asked about the slips uploaded on Twitter, the district election office said they could be authentic, but of a different person with the same name as that of the accused. “If there is a voter slip generated by the Election Commission of India, it should be authentic. However, it cannot be confirmed if the slips are of the same person (accused of shooting at CAA protesters),” said Rakesh Sharma, assistant district election officer.