'Jamia shooter' seen in provocative videos online

New Delhi: The man who fired at an anti-CAA/NRC protest near Jamia Millia Islamia University in 2020 was recently found posting provocative videos on his social media accounts. The man, who goes by Rambhakt Gopal" and is currently on bail, made his account private after his actions were called out by journalists and other fact-checkers on social media.

A Haryana court had last year granted bail to Gopal after he was arrested for anti-Muslim speeches during a hate event in Pataudi.

In one of his recent videos that was shared by users on social media, the barrel of a gun can be seen pointed out of a car window to purportedly threaten children, who could be seen running away. There were other videos showing the assault of an old Muslim man, who they alleged was a "cow smuggler".

The Haryana Police have not yet made a statement on the issue and are yet to take cognizance of the alleged assault - as of the time this report was filed.

The words "Gau Raksha Dal, Mewat road, Haryana" are written in Hindi on one of the videos posted on his social media.

In the video showing the assault of the elderly Muslim man, the group can be seen dragging the man into the back seat of an SUV as he struggled to free himself. In a while, the group of men can be seen holding his hands and legs and then throwing him inside the car. In this video, the text "Taking away the cow smuggler" was written.

Gopal has been prominent on social media for provocative videos with hate speech and has over 13,000 followers on Instagram. He lives in Jewar in Uttar Pradesh and fancies to call himself "Godse 2.0" — after Mahatma Gandhi's assassin Nathuram Godse. Even when he had received police protection, he would post videos on social media flaunting guns in front of his security officers. Many videos on his account are, significantly, about cow protection.