A police car, one of whose windowpanes was smashed when the biker gang pelted it with stones at Windsor Place in New Delhi early on Sunday. Picture by Ramakant Kushwaha

New Delhi, July 28: A 19-year-old boy riding pillion was hit and killed when police fired at the motorcycle’s rear tyre in an effort to halt a bikers’ gang that was doing stunts while zipping through New Delhi’s VIP zone at 2am today.

The incident, which prompted allegations that the cops were trigger-happy, comes at a time biker gangs in Calcutta have been accused of harassing women with the police turning a blind eye till last Friday night.

Delhi police officers were tight-lipped whether rules allowed the force to shoot at the tyres of speeding bikes — an act which, even if the bullet hit the intended target, could pose a danger to the helmet-less stunt riders’ lives.

Karan Pandey, who was killed in the police firing

Puneet Sharma, who was injured. (PTI)

Deputy commissioner S.B.S. Tyagi, whose comments on how night-patrolling should be done were published in The Telegraph last week, said just one shot was fired at the tyre as a last resort after the gang stoned the cops, injuring a few.

Shot at a spot about 1km from Parliament House, Karan Pandey, son of a single mother and a Class XI dropout who was taking computer lessons and was a gym regular, died on the way to hospital.

Tyagi said a police control room (PCR) van had spotted a gang of 30-35 bikers at Windsor Place behind Rashtrapati Bhavan and given chase, and was soon joined by another van.

“Our inspector tried warning them using loudspeakers but the bikers continued doing stunts. There were only six officers in both vans combined while, along with the pillion riders, there were close to 70 bikers. The officers were outnumbered,” Tyagi told this newspaper.

He said when two shots in the air failed to deter the gang, one bullet was fired from a moving PCR van at the rear wheel of the bike of Puneet Sharma, 19, on which Karan was riding pillion.

At that very moment, Tyagi said, Puneet did a stunt with the front wheel in the air, which meant Karan’s back was arched above the rear tyre. The bullet pierced his body from the back and on its way out, grazed Puneet’s back too. Officers didn’t explain the bullet’s apparent upward trajectory.

A PTI report quoting an unnamed officer identified the shooter as inspector Rajneesh Parmar.

Hospital tests have shown that Puneet, who has cleared his Class XII board exams, was drunk, Tyagi said. “Whether Karan was drunk too will be known from the post-mortem report,” joint commissioner Tejendra Luthra said.

Police spokesperson Rajan Bhagat said a magisterial inquiry, ordered routinely after any death in police firing, would decide whether the police were justified in shooting.

Luthra blamed parents of teenagers for the trend. “It (Karan’s death) is unfortunate but it shows that societal and parental control is loosening,” he said.

Karan’s mother Manju was unaware that her son had been on the streets at 2am when the police arrived at her home in the lower middle class settlement of Malviya Nagar Extension in south Delhi at 6.30am.

“My son went to bed at 11.30pm after dinner. I don’t know who kidnapped him after that or whether he left the house himself. He doesn’t know how to ride a motorcycle,” said Manju, who has been doing odd jobs for a living since her divorce several years ago.

“The police don’t shoot gangsters and terrorists; why did they kill my child? If he was drunk or misbehaved with the police, they could have beaten him or arrested him. This is murder. The cops who killed him should be hanged,” Manju said.

PTI quoted Kusumlata, Puneet’s mother, as saying: “Children make mistakes; the police have no right to claim someone’s life.” Puneet’s father works with a courier company.

Activists criticised the “extreme reaction” by the police. “Why can’t they use tear gas or water cannons? Why are shots fired by the police always fatal? The police believe they can get away with anything,” said Kavita Srivastava of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties.

Former police officers backed the force’s action. “When a shot is fired while on the move, also at a moving target, chances of the shot missing the target is a possibility,” Kiran Bedi tweeted.

Sources said that every day past midnight, several biker gangs perform stunts in the VIP zone, choosing the high-security area for its wide roads, while trying to evade the night patrols and the area’s 43 barricades. They have been known to harass women and vandalise petrol stations.

Tyagi said two bikers were arrested last week from near India Gate for harassing a college student on a scooty. “The bikers had chased her for 15-20 minutes and were passing lewd comments.”

The Delhi police have seized 153 bikes at night since it launched a drive against biker gangs from July 5. They have challaned 1,112 bikers for not carrying valid documents or not wearing helmets and arrested 12 for misbehaving with women or the police.

In Calcutta, the police had found one excuse after another not to act as complaints of street terror and sexual harassment mounted against biker gangs — until Friday when they launched a nightlong drive.

Tyagi said: “The Bajaj Discover motorcycle (Puneet) Sharma was riding was customised. He had removed the silencer and painted ‘killer’ on the bike. We believe he was a regular at these stunt rallies.”

The police are searching for the other bikers. “We still don’t understand what drives them to do stunts past midnight. We have done everything that was possible,” Luthra said.

The Delhi police have released CCTV footage showing bikers performing stunts late in the night, PTI reported.