E-Paper
Delhi riots: One more body recovered from a drain in Gokalpuri
New Delhi: One more body of an unidentified man was recovered from a drain in riot-hit north-east Delhi’s Gokalpuri on Sunday. The police said the body has decomposed
New Delhi: One more body of an unidentified man was recovered from a drain in riot-hit north-east Delhi’s Gokalpuri on Sunday. The police said the body has decomposed beyond identification, and they were not in a position to confirm or deny if man was a victim of the communal riots in the area that claimed 53 lives and left over 400 injured. The body has been preserved in a mortuary at a government hospital to be identified. An autopsy will be conducted once the deceased man’s identity is established, the police said.
At least a dozen people associated with suspended Aam Aadmi Party councillor Tahir Hussain and Shahrukh, both arrested in connection with north-east Delhi’s communal riots cases, are being under the police scanner to probe their role and assistance they provided to the two either in the violence or while they were evading law, officers privy to the matter said.
Before the body was found on Sunday, at least 11 bodies had been found from drains in north-east Delhi since the violence sparked on February 23 . On Friday, the police had informed the Delhi high court that they were making efforts to recover bodies from drains in the area.
More than 700 cases have been registered and 2,387 persons were either detained or arrested so far in connection with the violence between February 23 and 27 in north-east Delhi.
Hussain was arrested on Thursday in connection with the murder of Intelligence Bureau (IB) staffer Ankit Sharma, whose body was recovered from a drain in Chand Bagh on February 26. Three men were apprehended on Saturday after details of their involvement in violence in Chand Bagh emerged during Hussain’s interrogation. They were identified as Liyakat, Riyasat, and Tarik Rizwi.
On Sunday, a Delhi court sent Liyakat to 14-day judicial custody while Riyasat was sent to police custody for three days. Rizwi was granted bail from the police station, as the charges against him were not serious.
“We are interrogating Hussain and Riyasat to identify and nab others who were involved in the violence. Eight to nine persons linked to Hussain are being searched,” a police officer privy to the probe said.
In the afternoon the two special investigation teams (SITs) probing the cases of riots took Shahrukh to the place in Jafarabad where he had allegedly aimed a pistol at a policeman and fired some shots on February 24. The investigators re-created the entire scene at the spot and asked Shahrukh to show them the directions and routes through which he reached there and fled after the firing.
The police are interrogating Shahrukh to ascertain if he was leading a mob involved in the violence and had “mobilised outsiders”. He was arrested on Tuesday, eight days after a video showing him pointing a gun at a Delhi Police head constable did the rounds on social media, prompting the police to register a case of attempt to murder, on the constable’s complaint.
An officer associated with the SITs said Shahrukh’s interrogation has revealed that he procured the pistol from a Meerut-based arms dealer, who he was in contact with through a common link. Apart from the arms supplier and “broker”, the police are looking for the person who provided Shahrukh a shelter at his house in a village in Uttar Pradesh’s Kairana.
“It’s a good quality country-made pistol manufactured in Munger. We are sending the gun to a forensic lab to find out how many shots were fired on February 24, and if the pistol was used earlier,” an investigator said.
