Fresh video clip ‘shows’ firing at Sunday’s Jamia protest, police say will probe

The video purportedly showed a policeman hurriedly bringing out what appeared to be a pistol. Soon, there were two policemen out of three who appeared to be cocking their guns.

A fresh video which purportedly shows two policemen wielding pistols while dealing with a stone-pelting mob during the Sunday’s Jamia protests emerged on Wednesday and forced the Delhi Police to say that they would investigate the clip. The police have been maintaining that neither did they fire any shots during the protests that turned violent, nor were any policemen carrying any firearms while dealing with the agitators.

Students and local residents hold placards and raise slogans as they take part in a protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC), at Jamia Millia Islamia University, in New Delhi. (Burhaan Kinu/HT PHOTO)

The source of the latest video remains unclear, but the clip was shot in daylight. Hindustan Times could not independently verify the authenticity of the video. On a YouTube account where the video was posted, the location was described as New Friends Colony, on the Mathura Road.

By Wednesday evening, after a TV news channel ran the clip, the video was taken off by the user. The police said they are yet to ascertain the authenticity, the location and the time of the video.

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The video purportedly showed a policeman hurriedly bringing out what appeared to be a pistol. Soon, there were two policemen out of three who appeared to be cocking their guns.

When a stone landed near a policeman, one of them appeared to be raising his arm holding the “gun” and pointing it towards the crowd. There was a sound of a gunshot at that very moment, but it wasn’t clear if it was ambient sound or the noise was added.

There was no clear indication of smoke from the “gun” or of recoil on firing.

The same policeman then ran behind a wall in what seemed to be a chase of miscreants. Just before he disappeared, there was again the sound of a gunshot, but whether there was actual firing or not could not be ascertained.

The clip was followed by another clip that showed a young man kneeling, purportedly hurt around the same spot, and another person screaming that he had been shot by the police. That clip too will be probed by the police.

Chinmoy Biswal, deputy commissioner of police (south-east), said, “While we maintain that we did not use any guns, we will investigate the latest clip that has surfaced. Since Sunday, two other clips of the policemen firing have been confirmed as rumours by us,” said Biswal.

So far, Safdarjung Hospital has said that they have received one person with bullet injuries, who was supposedly among the protesters. The police, however, denied firing at him or anyone. The police have insisted that firing, if any, was by the protesters. In a report prepared by the police, they have claimed that an empty bullet shell was recovered by the policemen.