New Delhi: Delhi Police Special Cell on Friday arrested a 34-year-old man identified as Babu Wasim for allegedly supplying a weapon to one of the accused in the northeast Delhi riots case.


Wasim supplied arms to Shahrukh Pathan, the Delhi riots accused whose visuals of pointing a pistol at a Delhi Police personnel had been widely shared on social media.


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Delhi police informed the accused identified as Babu Wasim is a resident of Meerut in Uttar Pradesh, news agency PTI reported.


Deputy Commissioner of Police (Special Cell) Jasmeet Singh said that the police received a tip-off on Thursday that Wasim was to arrive in Tahirpur around 6 pm to meet one of his contacts. Accordingly, a trap was laid near Rajiv Gandhi Super Specialty Hospital and he was nabbed.


A pistol and five live cartridges were recovered from him, the DCP stated.


According to the officer, Wasim is an arms supplier and has confessed to having supplied weapons and ammunition to various gangsters and criminals in western Uttar Pradesh and Delhi-NCR for a decade


Wasim has admitted to the police that he had supplied a pistol to Shahrukh Khan alias Pathan, who was found brandishing the loaded weapon at a policeman during the Delhi riots in the Jafrabad area in 2020, the DCP revealed.


A video of Khan pointing the pistol toward a policeman had been widely shared on social media. Following the incident, Wasim had absconded.



 Shahrukh (in red shirt) pointing his pistol toward a policeman during the Delhi riots in Jaffrabad. (Photo: Varun Jain)


As per the police, Wasim has divulged that he has supplied more than 250 firearms to criminals and arms traffickers in Delhi-NCR in the last two-and-half-a-years.


He was previously found involved in seven criminal cases, including contract killings, shootouts resulting in murder, and attempt to murder in Delhi and Uttar Pradesh, PTI reported the police as informing.


Notably, his role in supplying firearms to other rioters in the Delhi incident is also being probed.


Clashes had broken out in northeast Delhi on February 24, 2020, after violence between the Citizenship (Amendment) Act supporters and its protesters spiralled out of control, leaving at least 53 people dead and over 700 injured.


(With Agency Inputs)