SALEM: In an incident of caste violence in Mallur town panchayat here, a 28-year-old Vanniyar from Vengampatti died in an alleged assault by a mob of Dalit youth late on Thursday. The incident took place in the nearby Ambedkar Nagar.
Five Dalits were taken into custody in connection with the incident and the authorities have deployed 400 police personnel to avoid any untoward incidents.
“Adequate force has been deployed and the situation is now under control,” said Superintendent of Police Amit Kumar Singh.
According to Mallur Police, the incident was a fallout of an alleged clash between Vanniyars and Dalits during a temple festival the previous day. For the past one week, a festival was being celebrated at the Mariamman Temple in the village dominated by Vanniyars.
Late on Wednesday, some Dalit youth from Ambedkar Nagar had come for the festival, where they teased a Vanniyar girl. It led to a quarrel, the police said. Police personnel posted at the temple intervened and pacified both sides.
Around 10 pm on Thursday, about 50 Vanniyars from Vengampatti went to Ambedkar Nagar to take revenge. They threw stones at some houses, upon which over 100 Dalits gathered at the spot and retaliated.
The Vanniyars then started fleeing, but B Karthick was caught, and was assaulted with stones and weapons, killing him on the spot.
On information, Salem Range DIG Nagarajan and SP Amit Kumar Singh rushed to the spot. The police recovered Karthick’s body and sent it to Salem Government Hospital for postmortem.Karthick, a casual labourer, is survived by his wife Bhuvaneswai (20) and a seven-month-old daughter.
Fearing police action, many Dalit youth from the area fled. However, the police nabbed five out of the seven men identified.