By late Tuesday evening, doctors at Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital said the victim, Ranvijay Singh, was critical — he was admitted with 95 per cent burn.

The youths were protesting the “murder of democracy” by Mayawati, the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and SP leader Mulayam Singh Yadav’s bete noire, on the BSP supremo’s 52nd birthday.

10.30 am. Ranvijay Singh, a till-now nondescript SP student’s wing activist from a nondescript village in Sultanpur district arrived at Jantar Mantar with fellow protestors, the police said. Wrapped in an anti-Mayawati cloth banner, he sat listening to speeches by Samajwadi leaders.

12.50 pm. The 25-year-old got up from the crowd, threw off his banner and began shouting slogans: “Mayawati ke raj mein Mulayam nazar band hai.” “Kisano ko beej tak nahi mil raha bone ke liye.”

(Mulayam is under house in Mayawati regime. Farmers do not get seeds).

Within minutes, he was in flames. “I was standing near him and suddenly saw him pour petrol on his body and light a matchstick,” an activist, who did not want to reveal his identity, said. “It all happened in a flash.”

In the chaos, the crowd did not approach Singh at first — he was screaming for help by this time, running around, witnesses said. But by the time he was reined in, Singh had suffered 95 per cent burn.

He was taken to RML Hospital.

Later, in his statement to police at the hospital, Singh said he is a third-year BA (Pass) student of Ganpat Shah College, Sultanpur. He said he had come to Delhi recently and lived at party MP Gyaneshwar Yadav’s residence.

The police said he was not in a condition to give any further information.

Singh’s brother-in-law Bhaiya Ram Yadav told Newsline that Ranvijay has five brothers and a sister — his eldest brother is physically challenged, and his mother had died some years ago. “They are very poor,” Yadav said.

The police said Singh’s father is on way to Delhi.