From PFI to Ankit Sharma’s killers: Amit Shah goes all guns blazing at anti-CAA rioters and conspirators

Last month, the national capital was rocked by riots orchestrated by anti-CAA hooligans in Northeast Delhi. Now, the Union Home Minister seems to be cracking down in a big way on such rioters. He has gone all guns blazing even as two office bearers of the Delhi unit of the radical Islamist organisation, the Popular Front of India (PFI) have been arrested for abetting and financing the anti-CAA riots in Delhi.

A senior Delhi Police Special Cell official has said, “We have arrested Mohammad Iliyas (PFI Secretary) and Parvez Ahmed (Delhi PFI Preisdent) for their alleged role in instigating the people during the Delhi riots.” The official added, “Their role has also surfaced in the funding of the riots.” According to him, Iliyas was already under the scanner for financing the anti-CAA protests and roadblock in Shaheen Bagh area of Southeast Delhi where some rather provocative remarks were made leading upto the riots in Northeast Delhi last month.

Stepping up the attack on rioters during his speech in the Parliament, Shah added that properties of those involved in the Delhi riots will be seized. In this sense, Delhi seems to be following the Uttar Pradesh model, wherein the Yogi government set an example by ensuring that the rioters had to pay for the damage to public and private property caused by them throughout the state. Shah has made it clear that rioters won’t be spared and will be made to pay up for the cost of damage that they have caused.

Detection of rioters is also in full flow. According to Shah, the face-recognition technology is being harnessed and as of now 300 people from Uttar Pradesh involved in the Delhi riots have been identified. Moreover, 152 arms have been seized by the law enforcement authorities, 49 cases have been lodged under the provisions of the Arms Act and 2,647 people have been arrested/ detained in connection with the Delhi riots.

Moreover, in a major achievement for the law enforcement agencies, significant headway has been made into Ankit Sharma’s gruesome murder case. The Intelligence Bureau staffer was specifically targeted and dragged by the rioters while he was standing on the other end of a culvert in the Chand Bagh area of Delhi where ferocious stone pelting was going on. After being dragged and overpowered, he was murdered in the most brutal manner possible. Autopsy reveals that Ankit Sharma was stabbed over 400 times, and his body was mutilated beyond belief. He had wounds all over his body and not even a single portion of it was spared.

As per the Union Home Minister Amit Shah, investigative agencies have received a video of the slain IB official’s murder from the local people of the area and the name of the murderer will come out soon. The Union Home Minister said, “We have received a number of videos from the public and all those videos are being analysed with the data of the northeast Delhi residents with the help of their voter cards and driving licences through a software.” In several videos of the locals from the area and the statements of the slain IB staffer’s family members, Tahir Hussain, an AAP Corporator, has been blamed for his brutal murder. Later on, he was also arrested in this case.

Apart from this, progress has also been made in a number of other areas also. Shahrukh Khan, the gun wielding rioter who had fired eight rounds of bullets at the Delhi Police was arrested on March 3 from Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh. A case has already been slapped against him. Coming down heavily on the opposition for politicising the sensitive issue, he lay the facts bare before the lower house.

Shah emphasised how the Delhi Police managed to bring the situation in control in 36 hours and that it was at his insistence that the National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval went to the riot-torn areas and took stock of the prevailing circumstances at the violence hit areas of Delhi. This debunks all allegations of mishandling that were being levelled against the police and the Modi government.

While inroads have already been made as far as detecting and punishing rioters is concerned, more facts are likely to come out. Delhi Police has been scrutinising mobile data, monitoring social media accounts and hunting for videos of the riots across Northeast Delhi. In the last one week, several videos have come out as well.

One of those videos is said to be that of a mob injuring Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Amit Sharma and murdering Delhi Police Head Ratan Lal, while the other video is that of a rioter firing at the Police. All these videos will, in all probability, lead to many more rioters getting nabbed and brought to justice. More videos will definitely surface from Chand Bagh as well and as the investigations proceed and more faces behind the riots are revealed and identified, the law will go a step further in bringing the perpetrators of Delhi riots to justice. With this Shah has made it clear that he is going to go all guns blazing against the Delhi rioters.