Biscuit salesman at centre of riot, arrested

The man whose alleged near-fatal beating at the hands of the Delhi Police triggered a full-scale riot that left one person dead and close to 40 injured on the Delhi-Noida border last evening, was formally arrested on Monday, Jatin Anand and Karn Pratap Singh report.

The man whose alleged near-fatal beating at the hands of the Delhi Police triggered a full-scale riot that left one person dead and close to 40 injured on the Delhi-Noida border last evening, was formally arrested on Monday.

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For 35-year-old Kamruddin Khan, a father of three, the hours preceding the unrest near his Khoda Village residence, had the markings of a usual Sunday afternoon, his father Mahavir Khan said.

"He asked me for the keys to our scooty so he could go out and collect his weekly payments from the local shopkeepers to whom he distributes wheat biscuits. But did not return home," Mahavir, 65, said.

It was only late on Monday evening, however, that his family got to know about his whereabouts - thanks to a chance sighting of the same black, damaged scooty tucked below the debris of torched vehicles outside a police station.

"We kept waiting for him the entire evening and just when I decided to go out and ask for him, I heard about the riot and decided to wait for him to get back instead," he said.

"This afternoon, one of our neighbours, who had gone looking for his son at the New Ashok Nagar Police Station, told us that Kamruddin's scooty was lying outside. Then we called the police station and were told that he's been arrested," he said.