Three buses were set ablaze, a fire tender was damaged and two firemen were injured.
Highlights
- Three buses were set ablaze, a fire tender was damaged
- Video footage from the area showed the mob being chased by the police
- The Jamia students have distanced themselves from the violence
Petrol was taken out of two wheelers parked on the roadside and used to set fire to buses filled with passengers, an eyewitness of Sunday evening's violence in Delhi has told NDTV. The hour-long pitched battle outside a posh colony between the police and a mob was the culmination of a protest march against the new citizenship law.
By the end of it, three buses were set ablaze, a fire tender was damaged and two firemen were injured and the police had used batons and tear gas on the mob.
Video footage from the area showed the mob being chased by the police through the streets.
The Jamia students have distanced themselves from the violence and senior officers of the Delhi police admitted that local thugs had hijacked the march, setting vehicles ablaze and throwing stones at policemen when they tried to stop them from marching to Jantar Mantar.
"The men took out petrol from two-wheelers and set fire to a bus, which still had passengers inside," Ravi, a man who works as a domestic help in the area told NDTV. "There was much panic. A young woman was sobbing loudly," he said.
The Jamia students have distanced themselves from the violence.
Asked how many men were involved, he said 15 to 20. When the police arrived, they scattered. "One of them threw a stone at a policeman. I saw him bleeding from the head," he added.
Protests escalated at Jamia when a march led to clashes between protesters and the police. The police later entered the Jamia Millia Islamia campus without permission and detained around 100 students, who were released around 3:30 am.
In addition to students, several policemen including senior officers were injured. One of them is in the Intensive Care Unit with severe head injuries.