On April 17, a video went viral on social media, showing a man wearing a blue ‘kurta’ firing shots with a pistol at a mob during the communal clashes in the national capital’s Jahangirpuri area on April 16.

The way he was shooting at the mob depicted the brutality of the alleged rioter, who, till that time, was unknown to the police.

The viral video mounted pressure on the police to nab him. But before that, the accused had to be first identified. The police, using local intelligence, identified the accused person as 28-year-old Imam alias Sonu alias Yunus, a resident of Jahangirpuri.

After identification, it was a challenge for the police to catch the offender before he could escape from the city.

On April 18, a team of special staff of the north-west district police went to the C Block in Jahangirpuri in search of Imam at about 1.30 p.m.

However, as soon as the team reached the alleged shooter’s house, his family members resorted to stone pelting.

During the incident, an inspector named Satender Khari sustained injury on his right ankle after one of the stones hit him.

Subsequently, the police registered a separate FIR at the Jahangirpuri police station and one of the relatives of the accused, identified as Salma, was bound down.

In a case where a person is bound down, he/she is not booked under any legal provision but is released subject to the condition that he/she will appear before the police for further probe.

After this, the police widened the probe and on the same day in the evening, Imam was arrested from Mangal Bazar road, hardly a kilometre away from the road where he fired shots during Saturday’s clashes.

Special Commissioner of Police (Law & Order), Dependra Pathak, termed Imam’s arrest as one of the most important developments in the case. Ever since his video of shooting went viral, he was being considered as the most dreaded of all the rioters.

During interrogation, the accused confessed to his crime and one sophisticated pistol was recovered from his possession.

On Tuesday, the police produced him before a local court which sent him to four-day police custody. Imam owns a chicken shop in the Jahangirpuri area.

Imam’s mother reportedly told mediapersons that his son only wanted to scare the rioters, and had no intention of killing anyone.

The Crime Branch, which is probing the case, also got hold of a man named Ghulam Rasool, who allegedly supplied the pistol to Imam.

(The story has been published via a syndicated feed with a modified headline.)