Jobless youth, jeweller’s son and business graduate find common cause

On a day a city court sent them to a day’s custody to Tihar jail for the assault,their families said they were as much perplexed as shocked and angry.

“He doesn’t usually behave like that. We had very little idea about his organisation and his activities,” said Avinash,sister of 26-year-old Tejinder Singh Bagga.

After completing a Bachelor in Business Administration four years ago,Bagga joined his father’s garment business in West Delhi but is said to have also floated the Bhagat Singh Kranti Sena in 2009.

In May this year,Bagga was sent to Tihar for a day on charges of disrupting a launch function in South Delhi for writer-activist Arundhati Roy’s book,where he protested a remark Roy made about Kashmir.

Last year,he protested at functions in Delhi attended by Kashmiri separatist leaders Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq. His sister Avinash told Newsline Bagga would often visit his relatives in Kashmir. “He would get very angry at any suggestion about Kashmir being separated from India,” she said.

Unlike Bagga,Inder Verma has never been to Kashmir,but has read a lot about it. His father Sunil Kumar Soni said,“He gets upset if someone tries to say Kashmir is not a part of our country.”

Inder,23-years-old,completed schooling five years ago but didn’t pursue higher studies. His father said he met Bagga at the BJP headquarters in Delhi three years ago. “He goes to Delhi University for campaigning during elections as well,” said Sunil Soni,who has a jewellery shop in Nangloi.

The third man arrested along with Bagga and Inder,25-year-old Vishnu Gupta,studied up to Class XII and had almost cut off from his family lately. He would come home only to have food,his mother Kanta Devi said. “ I keep asking him about his work but he never talks. He just comes home to eat and sleep. He is not at all concerned about the family,” she said.

Gupta lives in a village near Sarita Vihar in South Delhi with his five siblings and parents in a small room. His younger brother Ganesh described him as “a mysterious person”.