Wanted drug trafficker arrested for helping man absconding in Delhi riots case

The Uttar Pradesh police on Saturday arrested an alleged drug trafficker who is suspected to have helped Shahrukh Pathan, accused of pointing a gun at a policeman during the northeast Delhi violence, in escaping to Haryana after the riots, officials said.

Kaleem, 28, was wanted by the Narcotics Cell of the Delhi police in an old 235-kg cannabis smuggling case, they said.

"A non-bailable warrant for the arrest of Kaleem was issued by a court in Meerut. The accused was held from Kairana," Shamli Police said in a statement.

During interrogation, Kaleem told police that Pathan, who was on the run after the riots in Delhi, had come to him for help, official sources said.

"Kaleem said Pathan had come to his home in Kairana on the intervening night of February 27 and 28 for help, saying his car had broken down and his mobile phone had also stopped working," the sources said.

Kaleem has claimed that he did not know what Pathan had done and why he was on the run but had helped him get a bus to Panipat the next morning, they said.

The two men have known each other for one and a half years and had been to each other's residences earlier also, the sources said.

"The fathers of both Kaleem as well as Shahrukh have been jailed in Delhi's Tihar prison. One of them was convicted in a drugs case and the other in a fake currency case. It was during their visits to Tihar jail to meet their fathers that Kaleem and Shahrukh had come in contact," they added.

Meanwhile, Pathan, whose picture pointing a gun at an unarmed policeman during the communal riots in northeast Delhi went viral on social media, was sent to three more days' police custody on Saturday, officials said.

Pathan, 23, was arrested on Tuesday from Shamli district.