NEW DELHI: Lok Sabha leader of opposition Rahul Gandhi on Friday said the FIR registered over student protester Sahil Lochab’s alleged pellet-gun injury during the July 20 march is the “first step towards justice”.Showing a copy of the FIR, the Congress leader claimed that the “final okay” for registering the case had to come from home Secretary and union home minister Amit Shah.“This is the first step towards justice. The case has been registered. It has been a month since he was hit by that bullet. Pellets are still lodged in his body; three are in his eye, and he cannot see out of it. Three or four are near his heart. A grave injustice has been done to this young man. We arrived here at 11:00 or 11:30 this morning. We have been here all this time – it is now nearly a quarter to seven – and only now has the FIR been filed,” Rahul said.“Just imagine: in this country, so many women are raped, so many children are killed, so many people are shot, and so many carry pellets in their bodies. This police station is right in the heart of Delhi, yet justice is not being served here. Imagine what must happen at a police station in a village or a small town. We haven’t done anything wrong here; we simply sought justice for an Indian citizen – for his mother and father – and it took 8 hours. The final approval – the ultimate ‘okay’ – had to come from the Home Secretary and Amit Shah himself. Only then was the FIR finally issued. So, you can understand who was holding up the FIR. These police officers wanted to register it; the others wanted to do it too, but the brakes on justice were being applied from the top,” he added.Delhi Police has registered the FIR under Sections 118 and 125 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS). Section 118 of the BNS deals with voluntarily causing hurt or grievous hurt by dangerous weapons or means, while Section 125 deals with acts endangering the life or personal safety of others.
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This comes after Rahul accompanied Lochab to the DCP office and demanded action on his complaint alleging excessive use of force during the students’ “Sansad Chalo” march.Rahul later staged a sit-in outside the police station, alleging that police had refused to register the complaint. Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra also joined him in the dharna.After meeting senior police officials, Rahul had alleged that Lochab was not being allowed to file an FIR.“Sahil wants to file FIR for justice, but that is not being allowed,” Rahul said.He then sat on a dharna outside the police station with Lochab. Rapid Action Force personnel were deployed at the spot as the confrontation continued.Rahul accused the authorities of undermining constitutional principles, saying that refusing to register an FIR amounted to the “Constitution being trampled.”
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