The teenage gunman shouted threats and walked with the weapon before he was caught. (Reuters)
The shooter who fired at a protest against the citizenship law near Jamia Millia University on Thursday afternoon is a 17-year-old schoolboy who left home in the morning saying he was going to school. Later, the family was to go to a wedding.
Somehow, instead of his school at Jewar in Uttar Pradesh, he landed up at the protest, with a gun in hidden in his black jacket. He blended in with the protesters for a while, even streaming live on Facebook.
Then he suddenly whipped out the pistol and chaos erupted. He fired one shot, leaving a Jamia student of mass communication, Shadab Farooq, injured.
He was able to point his gun at the crowd, shout threats and walk with the weapon for several chilling moments before he was caught by the police.
His family was stunned when they learnt that he was the gunman at the Delhi protest.
The Class 11 student had been acting odd and saying strange things in the past four days, said his uncle.
His friends described him as a simple boy with no political connections.
That perception is completely contradicted by his Facebook page, which has several incendiary posts.
His Facebook page is full of messages like: "Shaheen Bagh, Game Over" and "I am the lone Hindu here".
There were some "farewell" messages like this one: "On my last journey, drape me in saffron and shout slogans of Jai Shri Ram."
The police say the boy's father has a tobacco shop.
This is the first such incident in more than a month of protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, many of them in college campuses nationwide.