Jamia Shooter Had Bought Gun For Rs 10,000 For 'Celebratory Fire' After Borrowing From Friends
Ever since the arrest of a 17-year-old boy for opening fire at students protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) outside Delhi's Jamia Millia Islamia on Thursday afternoon, one of the most puzzling questions everyone had was 'how did a teenager get the gun?'?
According to the Delhi Police, the juvenile had bought the country-made pistol and bullets from an illegal arms dealer in Jewar paying Rs 10,000 for it. He reportedly told the seller that he wanted the gun for ¡°celebratory firing¡± during a cousin¡¯s wedding.?
His father told The Times of India that he was surprised how his son had managed to buy a pistol. ¡°He would usually have only around Rs 100-200 in his possession and on Thursday too, he would have had maximum Rs 500 in his possession,¡± he said.?
Reuters reported that three days before the shooting incident, on WhatsApp he asked for several thousand rupees from a classmate, without revealing why.?
According to the family, the 17-year-old boy left his home on Thursday morning after telling his grandfather he was going to school and would return in the evening, and join them for a cousin¡¯s wedding. Instead, he took a bus and travelled all the way up 80 km away in New Delhi, strolled around among protesters in Jamia for hours before pulling out his gun and opening fire.
Despite him spewing communal venom on social media for some time, his family, neighbors, and classmates say they are clueless on how he got radicalized. According to those who know him, the shooter was a quiet and ordinary boy, who had a liking for wrestling. Family members said the boy usually split his time between school and home, which adjoins his father¡¯s small sweet shop and mostly kept to himself. In recent days, he had become even more withdrawn, spending a lot of time on his phone.?
¡°We tried talking to him but we couldn¡¯t get him to open up,¡± said his father.¡°I¡¯m still not able to understand what happened,¡± added the boy¡¯s grandfather, wrapped under a blanket in their family home in a crowded lane dotted with shops and Hindu temples.?
On his two Facebook accounts, which have been deleted, he posted calls for Hindus to unite. Some posts featured him posing with weaponsIn social media posts and conversations with some classmates, he spoke of restoring Hindu pride and expressed admiration for a right-wing activist whom police have accused of fomenting violence.¡°He wanted to do things for Hindus, he had that in his heart,¡± classmate Shivam told Reuters adding that?¡°For years, he had said he was going to do something big.¡±?
Some classmates said they were aware of his support for Hindu nationalism for at least three years, partly from his social media posts.The classmates said he idolized right-wing activist Deepak Sharma, whom police accused of instigating violence against students from Afghanistan at a north Indian university in 2018.?
At least two social media profiles of the boy - on Facebook, and WhatsApp had Sharma in the main display picture.Sharma said he remembered meeting the boy and recognized a photograph with him.¡°I am not in touch with him,¡± Sharma told Reuters.?
Though the boy claimed to be a member Bajrang DalPraveen Bhati, a local leader denied the boy was a member of the group.?
Unsurprisingly there are those in his village who support the shooter.Hours after the shooting, small groups of people walked past the boy¡¯s house in Jewar, shouting Hindu slogans in support of his actions.¡°What he did was unconstitutional, but we are with him,¡± a neighbor declining to be named told Reuters.
