NEWSLINKS
US EDITION
COLUMNISTS
DIARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA!
ELECTION 99
ELECTIONS
ARCHIVES

Search Rediff

Curfew imposed in Tonk, Rajasthan, after clashes

Kamla Bora in Jaipur

Indefinite curfew was clamped in Tonk on Sunday after a person died in violent group clashes between two communities.

Additional police forces, including the Rajasthan Armed Constabulary, has been rushed to maintain law and order in the Muslim-dominated town where divisional commissioner of Ajmer A Mukhopadhyaya and deputy inspector general of police, Ajmer range, S N Jain are camping to personally supervise the situation.

The DGP, Amitabh Gupta, after visiting the curfew bound town yesterday, told mediapersons in Jaipur that violence flared up in the town on Saturday over a petty quarrel between students at a sports meet in the local post-graduate government college.

A group of students attacked two persons riding a scooter at Ghantaghar chowk with hockey sticks and iron rods in the afternoon. In retaliation about two dozen students belonging to the other group entered a religious place at Gandhi Park and smashed furniture and electric fixtures and beaten up a student present there and threw him into an adjoining tank.

Soon a mob collected there, burnt down the jeep in which the attackers had come and fled leaving behind their vehicle. The violence spread to other areas even as the district administration promulgated prohibitory orders under Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code, with mobs pelting stones on two state roadways buses coming from Jaipur.

A police patrol came across a fire in a religious place and the 70-year old Nazir Miyan, who soon succumbed to his injuries. Sensing further trouble after his death, the administration clamped indefinite curfew in the whole of the municipal area at 5 am on Sunday as a precautionary measure.

Home Minister Pradyumna Singh, who reviewed the situation with senior police officials, said no untoward incident had been reported since the imposition of curfew.

However, he said, the situation will again be reviewed on Monday before deciding about relaxing the curfew.

A police spokesman in Jaipur said 37 persons had been arrested so far in connection with different incidents in Tonk, where five cases have been registered.

Two cabinet ministers hailing from the troubled town -- Social Welfare Minister Banwari Lal Bairwa and Women and Child Development Minister Zakia Inam -- also visited the town yesterday.

Both the ministers asserted that the incidents in Tonk were not communal clashes but the result of a quarrel between students. Some anti-social elements tried to incite passions by spreading rumours, they added.

Back to top

Tell us what you think of this report