A Muslim man, Mohd. Qasim, was shot at in Begusarai district of Bihar on Sunday morning allegedly after the assailant asked him his name. An FIR was later lodged at the local police station but the accused, who was named, has not yet been arrested.
Mr. Qasim, 28, was shot at in Kumbhi village allegedly by a local criminal Rajiv Yadav. The victim, a detergent salesman, had gone to Kumbhi on his bike to collect money from customers.
A video of an injured Mr. Qasim speaking about the incident, has gone viral on social media.
“I was stopped by Rajiv Yadav and he asked for my name… when I told him, he fired on me, saying “What are you doing here? You should go to Pakistan,” Mr. Qasim says in the video. “Rajiv Yadav was drunk and when he started loading another cartridge in his pistol, I pushed him and fled leaving my motorcycle.”
Shot in the back
Shot in the back, Mr. Qasim said none of the bystanders came to his rescue at first. However, when Yadav left the spot after firing in the air, some villagers took him to the local police station and the police then admitted him to the local government hospital.
‘Feeling threatened’
Mr. Qasim was later shifted to a private nursing home. “He is still critical. Doctors are scheduled to operate on him to remove the bullet,” Mohd. Javed, his brother, told The Hindu over the phone. “Yes, we’re feeling threatened after the incident…The accused has not been arrested yet,” he added.
Begusarai Superintendent of Police Awakash Kumar said, “Mohd Qasim has lodged an FIR at the local Cheria-Bariarpur police station and has also named one person. We are conducting a raid to arrest him but he is at large.
Earlier, Mr. Kumar had urged people not to generalise a single incident.
‘Don’t generalise’
In series of tweets, he said, “Let us not fall into this trap. Matter shall be investigated thoroughly and guilty punished. But request all not to spread such rumours based on action of a single individual. One must realise this sends a wrong message not only in local area but to whole nation and might disturb our social fabric in the long term.”
In the recently concluded general election, former Union Minister Giriraj Singh won the Begusarai seat, defeating CPI candidate and former JNU Students Union president Kanhaiya Kumar by over 4.5 lakh votes.
