MUMBAI: A 25-year-old youth from Bihar, Rahul Raj, who arrived in Mumbai two days ago with an alleged mission to assassinate Maharashtra Navnirman Sena President Raj Thackeray for his anti-Bihari tirade, was shot dead by Mohammed Javed, assistant commissioner of police, Kurla Division, yesterday morning.
According to the police, Rahul, brandishing a revolver, hijacked a Bombay Electricity and Suburban Transport (BEST) double-decker bus plying between Kurla to Andheri suburb in the morning. There were about 70 commuters in the bus when it was hijacked by Rahul, who first placed the revolver at the head of the bus driver and said “drive the bus to the residence of Raj Thackeray, I want to kill him.”
He then turned toward the passengers and threatened them not to move or make noises and said, “I am not going to cause any one of you any harm. I have come from Bihar to kill Raj.”
The police control room was alerted about the hijacking of the bus and the hijacker. A team led by ACP Javed was dispatched to the site. Javed said “We first informed Rahul that he was surrounded and asked him to surrender. The safety of the passengers was foremost in our minds. He did not respond and started firing indiscriminately, in which three passengers were injured. It was then that I fired eight rounds, in which Rahul was injured. He was rushed to the nearby Rajewadi hospital, where he was declared brought dead,” Javed said.
Meanwhile, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, speaking to journalists in Delhi, reacted strongly and condemned the Mumbai police for a “cold-blooded murder of a Bihari youth.”
Nitish said that from what he and his Cabinet colleagues had watched the footage of the incident on different television channels, it appeared that though Rahul was seen brandishing the revolver, the Mumbai police could have easily caught him, instead of shooting him down.
“They could have shot Rahul in the hand in which he had the revolver, and disarmed him, or coerced him into negotiations, and disarmed him. Shooting him point blank, was not desirable,” he said.
Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister and Home Minister RR Patil defended the police action. Speaking to journalists in Nagpur, Patil said “Anyone who attempts to take the law into his hands, or creates a law and order situation, will face the same consequences. The action taken by the police into the BEST hijacking was perfect and there was nothing wrong in it,” Patil said.
