Turkman Gate violence: Six more arrested for stone pelting during drive

Police said the accused are local residents and that special teams are probing both rioting and alleged mobilisation through misleading social media posts.

Six more people were arrested on Thursday for allegedly pelting stones at the police during an anti-encroachment drive abutting a century-old mosque at central Delhi’s Turkman Gate a day earlier, taking the total number of arrests to 11 so far.

Police flagged rumour mongering online, including videos falsely claiming a mosque was demolished, and said notices and questioning will follow. (Vipin Kumar/HT)

Deputy commissioner of police (central) Nidhin Valsan identified those arrested as Mohammed Afaan, Mohammed Adil, Mohammed Hamza, Mohammed Ubaid, Mohammed Athar, all aged between 20 to 30, and Shahnawaz Alam, 45. All six are residents of the Turkman Gate area.

Police also said that they are monitoring the role of two women who allegedly made “inflammatory” statements on their social media profiles.

“A woman who has over 32,000 followers on social media shared a video saying that the mosque was being demolished which was factually incorrect. This amounts to rumour mongering. She will be called in for questioning. A team went to her house to serve notice but it was locked,” a senior police officer said.

The other woman gave false statements to local media, again a case of rumour mongering, the officer said. “Notice has not been issued but we are looking into her role.”

In an overnight action, 32 bulldozers razed a banquet hall, a private diagnostics centre and a room where Haj pilgrims stayed, portions of a road, a footpath, and a car park — 36,428 sq.ft. of the Ramlila Ground, according to the MCD —after a brief bout of stone pelting by some local residents triggering a lathi charge by the police.

On Wednesday, police registered a first information report (FIR) and arrested five people — Mohammed Kashif, his brother Mohammed Kaif, Mohammed Areeb, Mohammed Adnan and Mohammed Sameer, all aged between 20 and 30 and residents of Chandni Mahal and Darya Ganj — on charges of rioting.

In the FIR, seen by HT, a constable said that all residents of the area had been told that the anti-encroachment drive would be carried out and that no damage would be caused to the mosque. “Despite this, at around 12:40 am, while the SHO and other staff were deployed at Turkman Gate and we were installing barricades, around 30-35 people came towards the barricades, raising slogans against the police administration.”

It further said, “The people in the crowd started pelting stones. Police made announcements through a loud-hailer informing that Section 163 (Power to issue order in urgent cases of nuisance or apprehended danger) of BNSS was in force in the area, but the crowd did not disperse and continued stone pelting after damaging the barricades.”

Police on Thursday also said that they have formed a special team to probe the rioting case. “The team is formed under an ACP and is headed by an inspector with four sub inspectors. One team will focus on identifying those who pelted stones and the other will focus on mobilisation using social media as a lot of people posted inflammatory and fake statements on their profiles,” the officer said.

A second officer said that a list of 10 YouTubers has been made based on a probe into social media activity during the night of the incident. “We are examining the profiles of all of them and they’ll be called in for questioning if they mobilised people using fake information.”

Among the arrested, Kaif is a fourth-year Chartered Accountancy student, Atthar is a delivery agent, and Alam is an auto driver.

Speaking to HT, Alam’s mother Raziya, 85, denied his role in the incident and said that it was a case of mistaken identity. “Our neighbour Ubaid has also been arrested and his brother’s name is also Shahnawaz. I think they have arrested the wrong person. My house was locked at the time of stone pelting and my son was inside with his family.”

A relative of Ubaid who did not wish to be identified said that Ubaid’s father had to be taken to the hospital after the arrest. “His father is also paralysed. He got more sick after the arrest and is now hospitalized.”