One of the two men who had claimed responsibility for the attack on Umar Khalid outside the Constitution Club in New Delhi on 13 August, had also been arrested back in 2014 when he had entered the BJP office in Delhi as part of a mob carrying a cow's severed head.
The man in question, Naveen Dayal, was a member of the mob under gau rakshak Gopal Das in 2014, and an FIR was also filed against him in connection with the incident, The Indian Express reported, citing police sources. The case is still going on in a Delhi court.
The Special Cell of the Delhi Police arrested Dayal along with Darvesh Thakur on 20 August after they had released a video claiming they were behind the attack on Umar Khalid. They were detained by the police from Fatehabad in Hisar in Haryana, and later arrested. On Tuesday, Delhi's Patiala House Court sent both the accused to two-day police custody.
After questioning the two, the police said that Dayal found Khalid outside the venue and attacked him on 13 August. Meanwhile, Shahpur was also present at the spot on that day, at a tea stall, but did not attack Khalid.
The two men claimed they were cow vigilantes who had come to disrupt the event that was underway at the Constitution Club to draw attention to the protection of cows, the police said.
Both the accused reportedly said the pistol was for their own safety, rather than to attack Umar Khalid, with Dalal claiming that he did not fire from the weapon and it simply fell down while he was fleeing the spot.
The pistol belongs to Shahpur; he had borrowed it from a man who is now dead. During the incident, Dalal was carrying the pistol.Police officer, as quoted by The Indian Express
After the attack, they both fled separately, with one of them taking a bus and then a metro, reported PTI.
In a video uploaded on Facebook on 15 August, they claimed the attack on Khalid was supposed to be an "Independence Day gift" to citizens.
(With additional inputs from PTI.)
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