The gunman has been detained (Express Photo by Gajendra Yadav) The gunman has been detained (Express Photo by Gajendra Yadav)

Brandishing a gun at a group of students protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act in New Delhi’s Jamia Milia Islamia University Thursday, a man chanted “Yeh lo Azaadi” as he opened fire at the protesters, injuring a student, amid heavy police presence in the area.

Hours before the incident, the assailant shared multiple posts on his Facebook profile in which he boasted he was the “only true Hindu” at the protest site and asked his followers to drape him “in a saffron cloth at his last rites” and chant “Jai Shree Ram.” He said he was doing “this is for Chandan Gupta,” who was shot dead during communal violence in Kasganj district in Uttar Pradesh last year. His profile has since been taken down.

Moments before the shooting, he also shot three Facebook Live videos which shows him heading to the area where students can be seen leading a peaceful protest.

He had also repeatedly threatened to “finish off Shaheen Bagh,” the epicentre of anti-CAA protests in New Delhi, in his Facebook posts. In one instance, he even compared its fate to that of Jallianwala Bagh, where a group of unarmed civilians were fired at by British troops on orders delivered by General Dyer in pre-Independence India in 1919.

The shooting comes days after Union Minister Anurag Thakur at a BJP election rally egged those present in the crowd to chant “Goli maro saalon ko (shoot the traitors).”

Thakur, addressing an election rally Monday, repeatedly chanted “Desh ke gaddaron ko” and had people responding with “goli maaro saalon ko”. It roughly translates to “What should be done with traitors of the country? Shoot them”. The Election Commission asked BJP to remove Thakur from its star campaigners list and has imposed a further 72-hour ban on Thakur.

The assailant’s name has been removed and his picture blurred as he is a juvenile

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