Youth fires at cops trying to take him out of room

Lucknow, (IANS) Taking out a youth who had locked himself in a room proved a challenging task for a team of policemen who could not reach him even after twelve hours, during which the youth fired at them several times, injuring an inspector.

Shamim alias Raju, 27, son of a doctor in the Bakshi-ka-Talab area on the outskirts of Lucknow, locked himself in a room of his house since Wednesday night, police said Thursday.

His father, Shabeer Ahmad called the local police Thursday morning when Raju still refused to open the door and a few constables headed by an inspector were sent to take out Raju from the room.

However Raju started firing at them with a double-barrel licensed gun that belongs to his father. As Raju fired indiscriminately, inspector Arun Kumar Dwivedi received bullet injuries and was taken to the trauma centre.

According to police, the operation started at around 7 a.m. but the team had no success in taking out the youth even by 7:30 p.m.

Information about the incident came known only in the evening when police issued a press release.

"We are making an all-out effort to take out the youth without harming him.  After all, he is not a criminal. We are exercising every measure so that the youth is not injured in the operation," Superintendent of Police (Rural) Ashok Prasad told reporters.