'Shaheen Bagh, game over', 'Ye lo azadi': Youth who fired at Jamia protesters made several provocative remarks before attack

Amid ongoing nationwide protests over the Citizenship Amendment Act, a man, brandishing a gun, opened fire at protesters near Jamia Milia Islamia, injuring one Jamia student who was identified as Shadab Farooq. ANI has tweeted a marksheet of the attacker, which shows that he is about three months short of 18 years, and thus a juvenile. Earlier, media reports had quoted the police as saying that he is 19 years old. Delhi Police sources told News18 Delhi that the accused is a resident of Jewar in Greater Noida. His father runs a paan shop, the sources said. [caption id=“attachment_7979461” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Protests near Jamia Milia Islamia on Thursday. News18[/caption] Although there is not much information available on the shooter, currently, we tried to piece together a brief profile from his Facebook page, which has now been deleted. The Times of India quoted a statement from Facebook as saying, “There is no place on Facebook for those who commit this kind of violence. We have removed the gunman’s Facebook account and are removing any content that praises, supports or represents the gunman or the shooting as soon as we identify it.” The attacker had written a post on Facebook before firing, in which he said that he intended to avenge the death of Chandan Gupta, who was killed during the Kasganj violence that took place in January 2018. He had also done other livestream videos recently, in which he was walking around the Jamia neighbourhood, where people have been protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act. Other posts on the attacker’s Facebook profile also show that he was hinting at carrying out such violence for quite some time. One of his posts reads, “On my last journey, take me draped in saffron and shout slogans of Jai Shri Ram.” Yet another of his posts said, “Shaheen Bagh…Game over!” Follow LIVE updates on Jamia shooting here He further wrote on his Facebook profile on Thursday, “I am the only Hindu here”, “There is no Hindu media here” and “Ye lo azadi” (Here’s your ‘freedom’.) He also made an appeal to people to take care of his family. According to NDTV journalist Sreenivasan Jain, the attacker had also posted a picture on Facebook with a man named Deepak Sharma. Sharma was said to have made a video thrashing a boy for making religious memes in 2017. According to him, Sharma’s Facebook profile shows him posing with BJP leaders, including Union Minister Giriraj Singh. According to a Jagran report, Sharma and the Jamia attacker from Thursday’s incident were part of a group that gheraoed a police station in Jewar after an alleged incident in which religious sites were damaged.