Police recover guns, reject charge of opening fire at mob

The Delhi Police, on Tuesday, claimed to have recovered a small quantity of country-made weapons as well as ammunition and termed 'erroneous' the Delhi government's belief that policemen had opened fire during a riot that broke-out on the Delhi-Noida border on Sunday, Jatin Anand reports.

The Delhi Police, on Tuesday, claimed to have recovered a small quantity of country-made weapons as well as ammunition and termed 'erroneous' the Delhi government's belief that policemen had opened fire during a riot that broke-out on the Delhi-Noida border on Sunday.

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Justifying their reaction aimed at quelling a mob of between 400 and 500 persons who engaged in arson and full-scale rioting after a rumour that a scooterist had been assaulted to death by police at east Delhi's Khoda Chowk, highly-placed sources claimed at least a dozen countrymade guns were not only brandished but were also used during the episode.

"The Delhi government should understand that desi kattas are certainly not standard police weaponry. We also have forensic proof that the gunshots fired - both in the air and at Vinod Singh Negi who was killed - had been fired from illegal arms. Over a dozen cartridges of different makes, have also been recovered," said an officer.

Sources also claimed they were close to identifying Negi's murderer through footage obtained from videographers and some television channels.

Meanwhile, Kamruddin Khan, the 35-year-old man whose fall from his scooty while trying to evade policemen manning a police picket on the Khoda Road and a subsequent attempt at reviving him by a startled cops triggered the riot, returned home to heavy police presence.

"There was no spat between me and the policemen on the picket," Khan, who police said was being 'treated as a victim', claimed. I was just returning home around 2 am when the police mistook me for a rioter," he insisted.

"We will write to our counterparts in UP to highlight the lethargy on their part. A sizeable number of rioters entered the area from beyond the border and fled as reinforcements arrived," an officer said.