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Updated: Feb 05, 2020 11:35 IST

The family of the 23-year-old man arrested for firing in the air near the Shaheen Bagh protest site last week has said they do not have any connection with the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), refuting a claim by Delhi Police.

Deputy commissioner of police (crime) Rajesh Deo had said Kapil Gujjar and his father, Choudhary Gaje Singh, joined the AAP last year in the presence of the ruling party’s senior leaders.

Deo said retrieved photos from Gujjar’s cellphone showed him and his father with the AAP leaders. He also said that the two have admitted to being members of the AAP.

Police’s claim gave fresh ammunition to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) whose leaders accused the AAP of “misusing youth for its political selfishness” and “constantly trying to incite violence to get votes”.

The AAP, on its part, alleged that it was a “conspiracy” and “another example of BJP’s dirty politics.”

Gujjar’s uncle, however, has refuted the police’s claim.

“I have no idea where these photographs are circulating from. My nephew Kapil had no association with any political party nor does any other member from the family,” Fatesh Singh said, according to news agency PTI.

“My brother, Gaje Singh, (Gujjar’s father) fought assembly elections in 2008 on a Bahujan Samaj Party ticket and lost. After that no one from our family had any links with any political party,” he said.

Singh also said that Gujjar doesn’t have friends associated with the AAP or any other political party.

His father Choudhary Gaje Singh had said while speaking to HT on Sunday that he contested the 2008 assembly elections in Delhi as the BSP’s candidate from Jangpura and the 2012 civic body elections from Khichripur ward.

Singh had said that he is not associated with any party or organisation.

Gujjar had fired two bullets in the air from a country-made pistol less than 150 metres away from the Shaheen Bagh protest venue at around 4.30 pm on Saturday. He was caught by the police as he tried to run away.

He was caught on camera saying, “No other community will have a say in this country. Only Hindus will.”

DCP Deo did not name the AAP leaders but photographs that surfaced on social media show Gujjar and Gaje Singh standing with AAP Rajya Sabha member of Parliament Sanjay Singh and the party’s Kalkaji assembly constituency candidate Atishi.

Hindustan Times could not independently verify the authenticity of the pictures.

On Wednesday, BJP president JP Nadda again hit out at Arvind Kejriwal.

“Kejriwalji, if you had worked, it would not have come to this. You first instigated the mob in Jamia and Seelampur… Inciting arson and stone-pelting in New Friends Colony… Then the protests in Shaheen Bagh … and made your worker fire there. Will you burn Delhi to defeat Modi and Shah? he asked on Twitter.

The protest at southeast Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) has become a point of contention ahead of the Delhi election on Saturday. The BJP, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah, have hit out the AAP over the protests.

Arvind Kejriwal and his AAP have accused the BJP of running a polarising campaign centred on Shaheen Bagh and trying to distract attention from development issues.

Gujjar was the second person to fire at the protest site after 17-year-old boy fired at a group of agitators in Jamia Millia Ismalia and injured a student.