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15 injured in Jaipur clash

Special Correspondent

JAIPUR: More than a dozen persons were injured in the Hasanpura area of Jaipur on Monday when the police resorted to lathi-charge and tear-gas to disperse crowds belonging to two communities attacking each other. Tension prevailed in the area till late in the evening.

The area was tense since Sunday night following stabbing of a youth over a dispute. Trouble started on Monday morning when a demolition squad of the Jaipur Municipal Corporation arrived at Shanti Nagar on Hatwara Road to remove some encroachments about which the local residents had been complaining since long.

When the owners of shops and kiosks allegedly encroaching on the road objected to the demolition drive, a crowd of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Bajrang Dal activists gathered on the spot and began raising slogans in support of the municipal authorities. The crowds on both the sides swelled soon and heated arguments and abuses followed.

Eyewitness accounts said the police remained a mute spectator in the altercation between the two communities, even as both the sides hurled stones and glass bottles on each other.

The policemen took action to stop the violence only when the situation deteriorated.

When the attacks from both sides did not stop even after the lathi-charge, the police lobbed tear-gas shells and succeeded in dispersing the riotous mob. After about 15 persons were injured in the clash and police action, the police said the situation was under control and no fresh incident of violence was reported.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has condemned "communal approach'' of the police in dealing with the situation and regretted that policemen did not stop the Sangh Parivar activists from targeting the shops and commercial establishment of Muslims. The party's newly built State headquarters are situated adjacent to the spot where the clash took place.

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