Shahrukh Pathan, whose picture of pointing a gun at a policeman during the communal riots in Northeast Delhi went viral, was on Tuesday arrested by Delhi Police from Uttar Pradesh's Shamli district, even as many people who fled the violence were yet to return to their homes in the affected areas.
Authorities said the situation has been peaceful for the last six days.
According to Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, 79 houses and 327 shops were completely gutted in arson during the violence last week.
Besides this, 168 houses suffered substantial and 40 minor damage due to arson, Sisodia said, citing figures available till Monday evening following a survey by officials.
On Tuesday, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) said that over 98 per cent attendance was recorded in the class 12 board exam held in violence-affected northeast Delhi.
Although the official death toll still stands at 42, five bodies, suspected to be riot causalities and recovered from drains in Shiv Vihar and other violence-hit areas, have been kept at RML Hospital. One of the five has been identified as Ali Aftab (21), a native of Bijnore in Uttar Pradesh.
18-year-old Aqib, who had suffered a serious head injury in the violence in Bhajanpura when he went out to purchase clothes for his sister's wedding, died during treatment at the Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital, his family claimed on Tuesday.
"He was operated upon by the doctors at the GTB hospital but could not be saved. He died around 7 pm on Monday," said the distraught father who was standing outside the mortuary waiting for Aqib's body.
Briefing reporters on the arrest of Shahrukh Pathan, Additional Commissioner of Police (Crime Branch) AK Singhla said, "He (Shahrukh) was planning to flee from Shamli but was nabbed and later brought to Delhi."
"We are trying to recover the pistol used by him during the violence. The pistol used was of good quality. He fired three rounds. He had gone alone in the protest," Singhla said.
In a video that went viral last week, Shahrukh (23) could be seen pointing his country-made pistol at the policeman on the Jaffrabad-Maujpur road on February 24 and also firing several rounds.
Police are trying to trace Shahrukh's family members, who are absconding.
A college dropout, Shahrukh was interested in modelling and used to make Tik Tok videos.
Earlier in the day, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and discussed the situation in the riot-hit areas.
Kejriwal said he has requested the prime minister that those responsible for the violence - irrespective of party affiliation - "should not be spared".
It was the first meeting of Kejriwal with Modi after the Aam Aadmi Party returned to power in the national capital for the third consecutive term.
After the meeting, Kejriwal appreciated the Delhi Police for being proactive in controlling the situation when rumours were being spread on Sunday night.
"Delhi police acted in a swift manner to control the situation when rumours were spread on Sunday night. Had the police acted with the same efficiency on Monday and Tuesday last week when riots were confined in a district, so many lives could have been saved," he told reporters.
Police have been conducting flag marches and holding meetings with locals in Jafrabad, Maujpur, Babarpur, Chand Bagh, Shiv Vihar, Bhajanpura, Yamuna Vihar and Mustafabad, which witnessed a deadly communal violence over the amended citizenship law last week.
A Delhi Assembly panel also issued a WhatsApp number and an email ID where people can file complaints about hate message being spread on social media over the communal violence in northeast Delhi.
Talking to reporters, Aam Aadmi Party legislator Saurabh Bharadwaj, chairman of the Committee on Peace and Harmony of Delhi Assembly, said if people find hate messages on social media, they could complain at WhatsApp number 8950000946 and email ID dvscommittee@delhi.gov.in.
A team of apex child rights body NCPCR on Tuesday visited relief camps in violence-hit areas of northeast Delhi to assess the condition of children staying there.
Amid heavy police presence and anxious parents waiting at school gates, 98.33 per cent of students appeared for their history exam in the riot-hit areas on Tuesday hoping for "better things" to be written in the national capital's history than communal violence.
"I will always remember how the situation was in Delhi when I wrote my class 12 exams," said a 16-year-old student of Zakir Hussain Memorial School in Jaffrabad.
"The history we learn for exams seems to be irrelevant to me, when the history that is being created now is terrible. I hope for a better history to be written in Delhi and the country, not the one that talks of violence and riots," said the student, who did not wish to be identified.
Meanwhile, in northeast Delhi, several residents and shopkeepers removed nameplates and billboards from their houses and shops to hide their identify fearing that they may be targeted.
A number of dark, narrow lanes deep inside Shiv Vihar, among the worst-hit areas, are empty. Similarly, many Hindu families in the area that borders Mustafabad have fled after locking their homes, while some among them took down or scrubbed their nameplates in a bid to hide their identity.
Deepak Rajora, 32, fled to his relative's home in Ghaziabad when violence started on February 24. "But before running away, I took down the nameplate bearing the name of my father," he said.
"A few others in our lane did the same thing," Rajora said. "Houses in one corner of our lane have been completely gutted by the fire."
In Burari, which is not far from the riot-affected northeast Delhi, Aqrab Saeed's furniture shop too has no board now.
Many residents sheltered at safer places have sought help from police and other authorities to go back and check on their houses.
"We left on February 24 when mobs started violence and arson in Shiv Vihar, leaving everything, including important documents and money behind. Now, we need to go back and check if everything is safe or not," a Shiv Vihar resident present at a helpdesk said.
Help has trickled in for those living in heavily-guarded riot-hit areas, with people carrying sacks of ration and milk cans in their vehicles.
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