Wrong Voter ID Circulated to Claim Jamia Shooter is Not a Minor

On comparing the photos of the accused and the one whose voter ID is being circulated, we found a stark difference.

On Thursday, 30 January, a youth fired a pistol at a group of anti-CAA protesters near the Jamia Milia University. The accused was overpowered, taken into custody and later sent to a 14-day protective custody by the Juvenile Justice Board.

Hours later, news agency ANI released a mark-sheet purportedly showing the accused as a minor, and thereby exempt from strict penal action.

CLAIM

Now, a voter ID is being circulated on social media claiming that he is an adult.

The ID being circulated mentions the Assembly constituency as ‘Jewar’ and the last polled date as 11 April 2019.

WHAT’S THE TRUTH?

We entered the Electors Photo Identity Card (EPIC) number as mentioned in the viral image on the National Voters’ Services Portal and found that the details matched to the one being circulated on social media. However, the portal did not reveal the image of the voter.

To verify the image of the voter, The Quint’s WebQoof team visited the Collectorate office, Gautam Buddh Nagar (which is the parliamentary constituency of Jewar).

We accessed the details of the voter ID with EPIC number which included the photograph of the person.

The Quint has decided to withhold the photograph of the voter.

However, on comparing the photos of the Jamia shooter and the one mentioned in the voter ID, we found that there is a stark difference between the two.

Further, on comparing the name of the father shown in the Aadhaar card and CBSE marksheet of the accused to the one shown in the Voter ID, we found that they are not the same.

While the name of the father mentioned in the voter ID is ‘Deepchand Sharma’, the one mentioned in both the Aadhaar card and the marksheet is not the same.

Journalist Arvind Gunasekar, in a tweet, said that there are 16 other people in the voter list of Jewar constituency with the same name.

While The Quint is in no way ascertaining whether the accused is a minor, we can certainly confirm that the voter ID in circulation is not of the accused.

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