: A day after 25-year-old Zeeshan Ali, one of the suspects in the stabbing of YouTuber Saleem Wastik, was killed during an exchange of fire with Ghaziabad police, officials said they had officially identified the second suspect in the case.
Police on Monday said the elder brother of Zeeshan, whom they identified as Gulfam, who is about one to two years older to Zeeshan, was the other suspect. Both are residents of Ghaziabad’s Khoda.
On February 27, two bikers, unidentified at the time, had stabbed Wastik multiple times around 6 am at his office-cum-residence in Ali Garden, Loni, and then fled on a bike, according to the police.
On Sunday, police said they had laid a trap for Zeeshan in Loni after receiving information that he was going to visit the area. Around 10pm, he was spotted by police on a bike. When police tried to stop the suspects, they fired at the police team.
Zeeshan was hit after police fired back and died during treatment at a hospital. Gulfam, who was with him at the time and whom police had not identified till then, managed to escape.
On Monday, officials said Gulfam was identified after footage from around 150 CCTV cameras was reviewed.
“Soon after assaulting Wastik on February 27, the bikers wore helmets to hide their identities and went toward Seelampur in Delhi, then to East Delhi before entering Khoda. On late Sunday night, the two returned to Loni to commit another crime,” Siddharth Gautam, assistant commissioner of police (Loni circle), told HT.
“After police intercepted the two, they fired about 14-15 shots at the police team. Ali (Zeeshan) sustained bullets in retaliatory fire and died. Police also recovered a ‘made in Italy’ pistol from the suspect, and the recovery will be investigated,” the ACP added.
Police said that Zeeshan was originally from Amroha district, and resided in Khoda. He worked as a carpenter.
Officials from the Ghaziabad crime branch told HT that Zeeshan also used to make videos on social media, sometimes preaching in them on religious lines.
About the second suspect, DCP (rural) Surendra Nath Tiwary told HT, “We are trying to arrest the second suspect, Gulfam, elder brother of Ali. The two assailants and Wastik were not related to each other. It is expected that the two suspects opposed Wastik’s views expressed in his social media videos. Investigation is underway, and we will also track and find out more about the social media posts or videos that the suspects prepared.”
Meanwhile, on Monday, a video surfaced on social media that showed two unidentified men wearing helmets fleeing on a bike with an incomplete registration number.
According to the ACP, “The video showed a man in kurta pyjama riding pillion with blood on his clothes. Prima facie, it seems the video was of the two suspects fleeing after the attack on Wastik, and some other person in a vehicle recorded them after spotting blood on their clothes. We are investigating the video.”.
HT could not independently verify the video’s authenticity.
Following the February 27 attack on Wastik, his son Usman Ahmad, lodged an FIR against two unidentified bikers as well as three others—a political functionary, a builder, and several local politicians.
“So far, we have not given a clean chit to the persons named in the FIR. Investigation is underway,” the ACP added.
Meanwhile, Wastik’s condition remains critical, with his family requesting not to identify the hospital. “He is still on ventilator support and was referred to a super specialty hospital in Delhi. We came to know that the police killed one of the attackers during an encounter. Right now, we are busy attending to my father,” Ahmad told HT.
Wastik has suffered severe injuries to his throat and also abdomen in the attack.
The incident prompted Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath to direct the police to take “strict action” on February 28.
The ACP said that Ghaziabad police had announced a reward of ₹ 1 lakh for Ali’s arrest.
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