FIR filed in pellet gun case after Rahul's 6-hour sit-in at police station

Rahul Gandhi accompanied Lochab and his mother to the Mandir Marg police station | Image: X@RahulGandhi

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday staged a dramatic six-hour dharna at the Parliament Street police station here demanding an FIR over pellet injuries to a youth during the July 20 protest and ended it only after police registered the complaint.

Gandhi raised the pitch on the issue after 19-year-old Sahil Lochab claimed that the police was refusing to register an FIR on his complaint despite him suffering pellet wounds including damage to his eye.

Soon after the police registered the FIR late in the evening, Gandhi said this is the first step towards justice and ended his dharna.

The BJP hit back at Gandhi and accused him of playing "politics of anarchy" only to remain relevant in the media and termed this as Congress' attempt to divert attention from the "wrong stand" taken on Vande Mataram.

Gandhi accompanied Lochab and his mother to the Mandir Marg police station in the morning, which refused to register the FIR. He then took them to Deputy Commissioner of Police (New Delhi area) Sachin Sharma, where he warned that if no FIR is registered he would sit on dharna for days together.

With the police claiming that the matter is being investigated and no FIR can be booked, Gandhi along with Sahil and his mother then sat on dharna in the police station premises with several Congress leaders joining him.

Top Congress leaders like Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Kumari Selja, Adhir Ranjan Chiwdhury, Jairam Ramesh, Salman Khurshid, Mukul Wasnik, Randeep Surjewala, among others, converged on the police station along with hundreds of party workers.

They raised slogans against the government and slammed Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah over the alleged police "brutality" against students.

Gandhi earlier claimed that he was told by police officers that an FIR could not be registered as "there are orders from the top".

While ending his dharna, he said the final FIR was registered only after an okay from Home Secretary and Amit Shah.

"You can imagine who was stopping the registration of an FIR, as these cops wanted to do so but they were not allowed." Targeting the home minister, Gandhi asked why is Shah so afraid of justice.

"This is the first step towards justice and a case has been registered," Gandhi said.

He said the FIR in this case was registered after hours of protest, saying "one can imagine what people of the country suffer when they seek justice in other parts of the country".