In a bizarre incident, two teenagers WhatsApped the images and videos to a select group of friends. For a month the photos and videos kept circulating until a police officer became a link in the chain of the WhatsApp forwards.
The police officer established the identities of the duo featuring in the photos and videos. But when police caught the two from west Delhi’s Dwarka on Monday, they were allegedly found carrying the same weapons seen in the pictures.
The arrested duo is identified as 19-year-old Sahil and 18-year-old Asif. According to Anto Alphonse, deputy commissioner of police the photographs and videos were taken moments after Sahil had purchased a semi-automatic pistol from Asif last month.
“Sahil liked to call himself ‘Badshah’, based on the Bollywood film he was inspired by. He wanted the gun to impress his girlfriend and other friends. His friend Asif is into selling illegal guns,” said the DCP.
While Asif has no police record, Sahil was apprehended as a minor in 2017 for allegedly killing an executive of a private firm during a robbery bid in Dwarka, police said. Both are residents of Kakrola village of Dwarka and are school dropouts, police said.
DCP said that the duo had met early last month. Sahil wanted to purchase a gun and had approached Asif, who arrived with a regular desi pistol and a semi-automatic countrymade pistol. “Sahil checked both the weapons and settled for the semiautomatic one.”
Sahil allegedly fired a test round to celebrate the purchase. Police said Asif took photos and videos of the event before they changed roles. They then allegedly dispatched the photos and videos to their small circle of friends with a request to not forward them anymore.
“One of those friends ignored the requests and that set off a forward chain. One of the receivers of the videos and photos was a police informer. He forwarded them to a policeman after whom the officers of Dwarka North police station turned active,” said an investigator.
After they allegedly uploaded videos of them dancing with illegal pistols on social media site TikTok, they were arrested after two days and two other alleged criminals were arrested from Dwarka district In that case.
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