After being battered with bricks and kicked by three miscreants, a police official in self-defence fired at one of them in Bindapur in south-east Delhi, police said. The police official was admitted in hospital in a critical condition.

Head constable Manoj Tyagi got a tip-off that one of the accused, Mohammad Mustaffa, who is involved in robbery cases, was seen in Matiyala village in Bindapur. Tyagi reached the village and saw the accused standing beside his motorcycle. “It seemed like he was waiting for someone,” said a police officer.

Then Tyagi approached Mustaffa and tried to question him, following which Mustaffa raised an alarm and tried to flee. Two accomplices of Mustaffa — Mohammad Mukhtayar and Mohammad Yusuf — came to his rescue and assaulted Tyagi with bricks and stones, due to which the head constable received head injuries.

Tyagi then fired some shots with his service revolver in self-defence, hitting Mustaffa on his forearm.

All the miscreants then tried to flee from the spot, leaving Tyagi lying on the road around 7.30 pm. Beat constable Satyaveer Singh, who was on his daily rounds at Shanti Garden in Matiyala village, heard gunshots coming from Allahabad Bank side, and rushed to the spot.

When Singh saw the three accused trying to escape with Tyagi’s gun, he alerted the police control room staff. With the help of a PCR van staff, he apprehended the accused in Matiyala village itself.

“The three accused were also involved in cases of attempt to murder, theft and offences under the Arms Act in various places,” said a senior police official. The trio has been admitted to Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital along with Tyagi. Mustaffa is undergoing treatment.