Udupi (PTI): Fifteen people, including a Superintendent of Police, five state reserve police personnel and some bus passengers were injured when police tried to disperse miscreants who pelted stones and threw soda bottles at buses and other vehicles on the National Highway at Kaup and other areas in Udupi taluk on Sunday night.

Fifteen people have been arrested in this connection, police said, adding that they were yet to ascertain the exact reason for the violence.

Police said the miscreants put up road blocks on the highway. Though police rushed to the spot and persuaded them to disperse, they gathered again and pelted stones and bottles on buses and vehicles, especially those coming from Mangalore after the 'Hindu Samajotsav' and on police jeeps.

The Superintendent of Police (Udupi), Praveen Madhukar Power, who sustained head injuries in the stone pelting, has been admitted to the KMC hospital at Manipal.

Among the injured were five persons in incidents of stone pelting on buses at Farangipet, Puttur and Bantwal in Dakshina Kannada District, Gopal Hosur, IGP, Western Range, said.

Additional police personnel have been deployed in the areas and the situation was now under control, he said.