LUCKNOW: Over 80 identified and hundreds of unidentified people were booked for rioting and damaging public property in Uttar Pradesh’s Shahjahanpur area after a clash broke out between two communities outside a gurudwara, police said on Sunday.
According to Additional Superintendent of Police (Rural) Subhash Chandra Shakya, Sunday’s fracas was the result of a spat between a watchman and a teenaged girl outside the gurudwara on Saturday.
“Tension erupted on Saturday when a watchman objected to a 14-year-old girl putting up a cart to sell rakhis outside the gurudwara in Banda area of the district. The watchman allegedly hit the girl with a stick on her leg,” Shakya said.
As news of the assault on the girl spread, people from both communities reached the spot and indulged in stone pelting. Police rushed to the spot and brought the situation under control. Three FIRs were registered in the case on complaints by the girl’s father, the police and Rajesh Jain a resident of Banda.
Superintendent of Police, Shahjahanpur, S Chinappa said, “Three FIRs were registered against more than 80 people from both sides and hundreds of others for rioting and damaging public property.”There is heavy police deployment in the area to maintain law and order.
A meeting of the two communities was also called by District Magistrate Amrit Tripathi to help law enforcement agencies establish peace. Tripathi said, “The culprits are being identified through the video footage of the incident, following which they will be arrested. Those responsible for vitiating the atmosphere will not be spared.” One police vehicle and two other vehicles were damaged in stone pelting.