An armed man was detained on Thursday after he brandished a pistol and fired at students of Jamia Millia Islamia university in Delhi, who were demonstrating against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act or CAA, police said.
The man also fired at the protesters, news agency Reuters reported, in which one student was injured. He has been admitted to a hospital.
The man shouted “Yeh lo azaadi (here, take your freedom)”, according to witnesses quoted by news agency PTI.
“We were moving towards the Holy Family Hospital where the police had raised barricades. Suddenly, a gun-wielding man came out and opened fire. One bullet hit my friend’s hand,” Aamna Asif, a student of economics at the university, told PTI.
The man, who is yet to be identified, was overpowered by protesters and subsequently arrested by the police. He is currently being questioned.
There was heavy police presence and several media crews in place when the incident took place.
The students were heading from Jamia to Mahatma Gandhi’s memorial Rajghat.
Protests against the CAA, which fast-tracks Indian citizenship for non-Muslim minorities from three neighbouring countries, have flared since last December.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has said that the law is required to help persecuted minorities who came to India before December 31, 2014 from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan.
But protesters insist the law discriminates against the country’s Muslim minority and violates India’s Constitution.
