The special cell of the Delhi Police on Monday, 20 August, arrested the two men who had released a video claiming they were behind the attack on JNU student Umar Khalid. On Tuesday, Delhi’s Patiala House Court sent both the accused to a two-day police custody.
An unidentified gunman had fired a bullet, shortly after assaulting Khalid, on 13 August outside Delhi's Constitution Club. The JNU student had escaped unhurt.
Two days later, on Independence Day, the duo, Naveen Dalal and Darvesh Shahpur from Haryana, had released a video on Facebook, saying they plotted the attempt on Umar Khalid’s life.
On 17 August, personnel from the Delhi Police, Haryana Police and Punjab Police had awaited the arrival of these men, outside the memorial to Sikh revolutionary Kartar Singh Sarabha, at the village of Sarabha in Punjab’s Ludhiana district. In their Facebook video, the two men had said they would surrender to the police at 12 noon on 17 August, at this very village. But they hadn’t turned up.
On Thursday, MM Oberoi, Special CP of the Delhi Police’s Special Cell, which is handling the investigation, had told The Quint:
Someone forwarded this video to us. Our team is looking into this matter. Our job is to probe every lead we get during the investigation. As of now, we haven’t reached any conclusion.MM Oberoi, Delhi Police Special Cell
Members of Punjab’s Naujawan Bharat Sabha were also at the venue in Sarabha, protesting against the alleged attackers. Rupinder Chauda, one of the protesters, told The Quint, “We are here as part of a peaceful protest against these men who attacked Umar Khalid. We will block their entry to the memorial of Kartar Singh Sarabha. The police are anyway waiting to apprehend them at the main road, less than a kilometre from the memorial.”
Eyewitness: Attacker Present in the Video
27-year-old Shariq Husain, one of the eyewitnesses to the attack on Umar Khalid, told The Quint, "The man on the right of the screen in the video was the man who attacked Umar outside Constitution Club."
Banojyotsna Lahiri, another eyewitness to the attack, claims that there are specific similarities between the facial features of the attacker and one of the men in the video.
Speaking to The Quint, Lahiri said, “On 13 August, I had described the physical features of the attacker to the police for a sketch. Some of the attacker’s facial features are definitely matching with one of the men in the video.”
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)