Two men on a motorbike fired four rounds in Delhi’s Jaffrabad area on Friday, just a day before the city-state goes to the polls, the Hindustan Times reported. No one was injured in the incident.
Police officers said that the men, both wearing helmets, shot twice at a garments shop and then fired two rounds in the open. The police claimed they suspected personal enmity was the reason for the violence.
However, the shop owner, Shabir Khan, 50, who lives in Babarpur, said he has no enmity with anyone. “I was sitting in the sun outside my shop when the two men came on a bike and fired two bullets at my shop and twice in the open,” Khan said. “My brother Murtaza Khan and I run this shop together. We don’t owe any money to anybody.” The said the incident took place just as residents of the area were about to offer their afternoon prayers.
The police said they received a call around 1.30 pm that two men had opened fire in Jaffrabad, but no one was hurt. A senior police officer, who did not wish to be identified, said they rushed a team to the spot and found that the men had come on a motorbike and were wearing helmets to cover their faces.
“We have collected the empty bullet shells from the spot and a crime and forensics team have combed the area,” the police officer said. “Initial probe has suggested that the two men were targeting a garment shop, right outside which two bullets were fired.”
Deputy Commissioner of Police (Northeast Delhi) Ved Prakash Surya said the investigation had ruled out robbery as a motive behind the crime. “A case has been registered and we are probing the possibility of the shop owner’s personal enmity angle behind the incident,” he said.
However, Shabir Khan alleged that the police was treating it as a case of personal enmity because the Delhi Assembly elections are to be held on Saturday.
There have been several incidents of persons opening fire in Delhi of late. On February 3, the Delhi Police arrested a wrestler for allegedly supplying a weapon to the teenager who shot a protestor outside Jamia Millia Islamia University on January 30.
A copycat incident took place outside the university on January 2, when shots were fired outside its Gate No 5. Two attackers, one of them wearing a red jacket, came on a red scooter, the Jamia Coordination Committee formed to protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act said. After the incident, scores of people at the protest site gathered outside the Jamia Nagar Police Station to register a complaint.
These incidents have been linked to belligerent rhetoric by Union ministers ahead of the Delhi elections. Minister of State for Finance Anurag Thakur had in a rally on January 30 encouraged the audience to chant “desh ke gaddaron ko, goli maaro saalon ko” (shoot the traitors of the country).
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