A four-and-a-half-minute video is being circulated on WhatsApp in which two young men have purportedly claimed responsibility for the alleged attack on Umar Khalid, a JNU student leader, on August 13. In the video, the two men, one of them holding the Indian Tricolour, can be heard saying they would surrender at the house of Sikh revolutionary Kartar Singh Sarabha on August 17.
The Delhi Police Special Cell has launched a hunt to arrest the two.
The clip is 4 minutes and 31 seconds long and has also been uploaded on YouTube.
“By attacking Khalid, we wanted to give a gift to the people on the occasion of Independence Day,” one of them men said in the video. Identifying themselves as Sarvesh Shahpur and Naveen Dalal, the two appealed to the police not to “harass” others for the attack.
“Our message to all our fellow Indians is that we have done this attack not for ourselves, but for the entire nation. We do not care even if we lose our lives for this. We will not let terrorists like Afzal be born in this country,” one of them says towards the end of the clip.
“If their claim found to be corroborative, they will be arrested,” The Indian Express quoted a Special Cell officer as saying.
The police said they would take the help of Haryana and Punjab police to track down the two.
Khalid was allegedly attacked on Monday outside the Constitution Club of India where he was scheduled to attend an event. The accused had fled after the attack, leaving the weapon at the spot. According to the police, his accomplice was waiting for him in a vehicle at a distance.
The police have collected CCTV footage from the spot, and are said to be trying to match the photo of the two persons in the video with the alleged attackers seen in the footage.
They suspect the two are from Haryana or Punjab.
On Wednesday, a team of Special Cell recreated the crime scene at the spot outside the Constitution Club. They also recorded the statement of Khalid and other eyewitnesses in connection with the case.