New Delhi: A mob ransacked shops in Gurugram’s Badshahpur Tuesday afternoon as communal clashes spread to the financial hub from neighbouring Nuh, which saw widespread hostility and arson Monday over a religious procession.
A group of 40 to 50 men went around Badshahpur in the afternoon asking shop-owners to shutter their establishments to protest the violence in Nuh on Monday.
Arguments and threats flew thick and fast and ended up with shops and restaurants being vandalised. There were reports that some of them had been burnt down.
There was violence overnight in Gurugram after a mosque in Sector 57 was attacked, resulting in the death of one person.
The death toll so far is five, including two home guards who were killed in Nuh Monday, and nearly 60 have been injured.
Violence erupted Monday in Nuh over an attempt to stop a procession called the “Braj Mandal Yatra” organised by the Vishva Hindu Parishad and the Matra Shakti Durga Vahini.
The yatra was scheduled to go from the Shiv temple to Ferozepur Jhirka, but a mob stopped the procession at Khoda Mor in Nuh, leading to the clashes, police sources told ThePrint.
As the evening progressed, stones were hurled in several places, including in Gurugram’s Sohna, forcing the district administration to impose prohibitory orders.
Nearly 3,000 people, who were part of the yatra, were stranded at the Nalhar Shiv Mandir, from where the procession began, and were eventually rescued.
Local residents in Nuh accused police and local authorities of negligence and apathy, citing incendiary videos which were allegedly circulated by Monu Yadav alias Monu Manesar, a cow vigilante who is accused of abducting and murdering two Muslim men in Bhiwani earlier this year.
Nuh is a Muslim-majority district in Haryana’s Mewat region.
More than 40 vehicles were torched in the ensuing arson and stone-hurling, the police said. A police station was also reportedly attacked.
While Nuh was put under curfew, Deputy Commissioner of Gurugram Nishant Yadav said Tuesday that the situation in Gurugram was “absolutely under control”.
VIDEO | "Law and order is normal. There were some spill-over impact in Sohna of whatever happened in Nuh yesterday, however, situation was brought under control by evening. The situation is peaceful now," says Gurugram DC Nishant Yadav on overnight violence in #Gurugram. pic.twitter.com/xFTJdiolwp
— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) August 1, 2023
Meanwhile, the Gurugram police commissioner released a statement in the evening, announcing compensation for the home guards killed in Nuh Monday.
The statement read: “Two of our colleagues, Home Guard Neeraj and Home Guard Gursev, who were deployed from Gurugram to Nuh in the wake of the law and order disturbance in that district, laid down their lives in the line of duty yesterday… While no amount can compensate for the loss of a loved one, the bereaved family will be provided with Rs 57 lakh and all support by Haryana Police.”
Also read: Violence in Nuh engineered to disturb peace, says Haryana Home Minister Anil Vij