The family said that Mr Yadav and three others were returning from Bahrampur around 10.30 pm when the police stopped their vehicle and opened fire. (Representational Image)

New Delhi: Four police personnel have been suspended after a trainee sub-inspector allegedly shot at a 26-year-old gym trainer and his friends when they were returning home in Noida Sector-122 on Saturday late night. While one has sustained injuries on the leg, the other one is critically injured. The police, however, denied the family’s claims of a fake encounter, saying it was a case of personal enmity.

A relative of Jitendra Yadav, who is fighting for his life in hospital, said the police has taken to targeting young men in the area, staging fake encounters to get promotions.

On Sunday afternoon, SSP (Gautam Buddha Nagar) Love Kumar maintained: “Prima facie, what has come to be understood is that it is not an encounter, but an unusual incident in which the accused sub-inspector has been arrested and sent to jail. We are probing the case from different angles and all facts are being verified,” Mr Kumar said.

Sub-inspector Darshan has been arrested and three other police personnel — a sub-inspector and two constables — had been suspended, he added.

The family members of one of those who suffered injuries said that it was a fake encounter. However, the UP police cited personal enmity behind the incident on Saturday night.

“During the probe, it was found that the trainee sub-inspector knew the elder brother of the man, who was shot,” Mr Kumar said.

The family of Jitendra Yadav, who was shot in the neck, said that the police targeted him in a “fake encounter.” They also accused the policemen, involved in the incident, of targeting the two men because of their caste. The family said that Mr Yadav and three others were returning from Bahrampur around 10.30 pm when the police stopped their vehicle and opened fire.

Meanwhile, in a major embarrassment to the Delhi police, a CCTV footage went viral where the Mianwali Nagar police station SHO, along with three other junior policemen, can be seen allegedly brutally assaulting seven persons, including an officer of the Central excise department, a tax assistant with the income-tax department, and five of their associates.

A complaint about the alleged assault was made to DCP (Outer) M.N. Tiwari by Mahavir Singh Saini, the father of one of the assaulted. The police has stated that the SHO has been sent to the district lines and an internal inquiry has been initiate.