One more suspect nabbed in Jahangirpuri violence case, total 39 held so far

The suspect, who police identified as Sheikh Sikandar, 38, carried a reward of Rs25,000 on his arrest. A police officer said that Sikandar was a scrap collector and had earlier been arrested in a case of murder registered in 2013.

New Delhi: One more alleged suspect wanted in connection with the communal violence in north-west Delhi’’s Jahangirpuri was arrested on Saturday, the police said, and added that so far 39 people have been arrested in the case and six are absconding.

On April 16, clashes broke out between Hindus and Muslims in Jahangirpuri during a procession on the occasion of Hanuman Jayanti. (HT Photo)

The suspect, who police identified as Sheikh Sikandar, 38, carried a reward of Rs25,000 on his arrest. A police officer said that Sikandar was a scrap collector and had earlier been arrested in a case of murder registered in 2013.

A non-bailable warrant (NBW) had been issued against Sikandar,38. He had been evading arrest since April 17, a day after clashes broke out between Hindus and Muslims in Jahangirpuri during a procession on the occasion of Hanuman Jayanti. As the procession wound its way through Jahangirpuri’s C-Block, a scuffle broke out and it soon escalated into stone pelting, in which a few policemen and a resident were injured. The case was transferred to the crime branch on April 18.

Deputy commissioner of police (north-west) Usha Rangnani said that Sikandar was arrested on Saturday morning from Jahangirpuri, a few hours after he returned there after absconding for nearly four months. “Our special staff team led by Inspector Amit Kumar received information about the return of Sikandar. The team swiftly conducted a raid and caught him,” said DCP Rangnani.

A police officer who was part of the team that arrested the suspect said Sikandar has told the police that he had participated in the violence, pelted stones and bottles at the Hindu group. The officer said that Sikandar told the interrogators that he joined the violence to gain influence and become popular for “protecting the community”.

After he was identified by the police through CCTV footage and his name emerged as one of the key rioters, Sikandar fled to his native village in Haldia in West Bengal with his wife and two children on April 20, four days after the communal violence, the officer said.

“Sikandar remained in his village and kept a low profile. He claims no police team ever visited his village to enquire about him or arrest him. His claim is being verified. On August 11, he boarded a train to Delhi assuming that the case was not being pursued as aggressively as it was in the initial weeks. He reached Old Delhi railway station around 10pm on Friday night and then went to Jahangirpuri, from where we caught him,” the officer said.

Police said Sikandar’s father had come to Delhi over four decades ago and settled in a jhuggi in north-east Delhi. After the hutment was demolished, he shifted to CD block in Jahangirpuri, where Sikandar was born. After murdering a fellow scrap collector and spending five years in jail, Sikandar returned to his native village with family. They returned to Delhi in 2021.

Last month, the crime branch submitted a charge sheet before a Delhi court and claimed that the communal violence was not “spontaneous”, but part of a “larger conspiracy” and in continuation of the “protests against CAA and NRC of 2019 and 2020 in Shaheen Bagh and the north-east Delhi riots of February 2020, which got further aggravated after Ram Navmi incidents in different parts of the country on April 10.

The charge sheet, running into 2063 pages, was filed against 37 people – 30 Muslims and seven Hindus. The police said they used their face recognition system (FRS) to identify and nab at least 16 suspects. A total of 20 arrested persons were captured in CCTV cameras and mobile videos that went viral on the Internet after the violence. The help of FRS and other technologies were taken for their identification. The FRS enables the police to run facial scans of suspects to match with the database of over 50,000 criminals.