They had claimed responsibility in video uploaded by them

A week after Jawaharlal Nehru University student Umar Khalid was attacked, two persons have been arrested by the Delhi Police Special Cell in connection with the case.

Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police (Special Cell) Manishi Chandra confirmed the development and said that the two arrested accused have been identified as Naveen Dalal (28) and Darvesh Shahpur (25), both from Haryana.

In 2014, Naveen Dalal was arrested for allegedly entering the BJP office with a cow head, the police said.

The accused had uploaded a 4.28-minute video on social media on Independence Day claiming responsibility for the attack and had said that they wanted to give “the people of the nation a gift on the day”.

Sources said the two accused were arrested from the outskirts of Delhi in the early hours of Monday with the help of human and technical surveillance.

Ascertain motive

A senior police officer said the accused are being interrogated to ascertain whether they had actually committed the crime and the motive behind it.

“We have to be sure whether they are the ones who actually attacked Mr. Khalid. We have to gather evidence because the video does not prove anything,” he said.

The police are interrogating the two men on their whereabouts on the day of the incident and trying to obtain CCTV footage from nearby places.

“Their locations on the day of the incident will be checked and matched to ascertain whether they were near or at the place where the incident happened. Eyewitness accounts will be cross-checked with their version of the events,” the officer said.

The police suspect that the accused uploaded the video “for publicity”, which, perhaps, was their “primary motive”.

“It was important to detain them because, going by the video, they posed a threat to Mr. Khalid’s life,” the officer added.

To a question on whether the accused had connections with any gang, the officer said that “no connection has been found so far”.

In June, Mr. Khalid had received death threats from someone claiming to be gangster Ravi Pujari. Mr. Khalid was attacked on August 13 outside the Constitution Club, where he had gone to attend an event organised by an NGO.