Delhi Police Head Constable Dead, DCP Injured As Anti-CAA Protests Turn Violent In Northeast Region

A Delhi Police head constable was killed during clashes over the new citizenship law in northeast Delhi on Monday, a senior officer said. Ratan Lal was attached to the office of the Assistant Commissioner of Police, Gokulpuri, he said. Several police personnel have been injured in the clashes, he said. Several vehicles, shops and houses were torched on Monday, a day after clashes broke out between those against and for the Citizenship (Amendment) Act. DCP Shahdara Amit Sharma also sustained injury during the clashes.

On Sunday, clashes broke out between police and violent, anti-CAA protesters in the old city area, in which at least five persons were injured, two of them critically, said officials.

With protesters indulging in arson, vandalisation of property and stone-pelting at security personnel in Upper Kot area under Kotwali police station limit, the police fired teargas shells and rubber bullets to disperse the mob, said Aligarh District Magistrate Chandra Bhushan Singh.

Following the violence, the district adminstration also suspended internet services in the city till midnight today as a precautionary measure, Singh added. Those injured in clashes included a 22-year-old onlooker, who was, according to his father, fired at and injured by a miscreant, whom, he said, he recognises. Four others in the mob suffered injuries from pellets and rubber bullets, two of them in their eyes, with one of them likely to lose his left eye, said doctors treating them.

Deputy Inspector General of Police (Aligarh range) Preetinder Singh, meanwhile, told PTI that police have also detained some persons after the violence. The protesters too have been evicted from their “dharna” site, he added.

Aligarh DM Singh said the violence broke out at a spot on Mohamed Ali Road leading to the Kotwali police station where some women protestors were holding a dharna since Saturday with the police trying to evict protesters from there. The trouble began around 5 pm when the police tried to persuade women protestors at Upper Kot near Kotwali to evict them from the road, he said.

“We told them that women protestors were already holding a dharna at Eidgah and they would not be permitted to hold another such protest near Kotwali,” said Singh.

He said “even as efforts were underway to convince women to leave the area with prominent Muslim citizens of the area, including the Sahar mufti Abdul Khalid trying to defuse the situation, mayhem broke out and brick-batting started..”

(With agency inputs)