The Jahangirpuri Files: How hugs, handshakes exploded into riots | Eyewitness accounts

India Today's Special Investigation Team reached Jahangirpuri in Delhi to gather eyewitness accounts of the communal clash that broke out during a Hanuman Jayanti procession on Saturday evening.

Saffron flags could be seen scattered at Jahangirpuri’s mosque in Delhi, some inside its compound.

On India Today’s hidden camera, a participant in Saturday’s Hanuman Jayanti procession admitted that a group of marchers stopped outside and raised Jai Shri Ram slogans.

Karan, however, said the sacred Hindu cries at the gates of a mosque shouldn’t offend anybody.

“We stopped outside the mosque. There shouldn’t be any objection to saying Jai Shri Ram there,” he told India Today’s Special Investigation Team, unaware he was being filmed.

As police swung into action, carried out searches and made arrests in connection with the Jahangirpuri rioting on Saturday, India Today’s SIT dug deeper to find out what triggered the communal violence, Delhi’s worst in two years.

“There shouldn’t be any problem [in Jai Shri Ram slogans being chanted outside a mosque]. Why hurl stones?” Karan said.

The Shobha Yatra marchers, he said, gave a tit-for-tat response to the alleged stone-pelting.