Chandigarh: Two personnel of the Haryana Home Guards were killed and over 15 people wounded in communal clashes that broke out at a religious procession in the state’s Nuh district Monday evening, police said.
The clashes erupted during the ‘Braj Mandal Yatra’, a procession organised by Hindu groups Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) and Matra Shakti Durga Vahini, and led to stonepelting and arson, with more than 40 vehicles torched, according to the police. A police station has also reportedly been attacked.
Violence has also been reported in neighbouring Nagina and Ferozepur Jhirka towns.
Nuh is a Muslim-majority district in Haryana’s Mewat region. Police sources told ThePrint that at least 10 police personnel, including a deputy superintendent of police, are among those wounded.
While it’s still unclear how the violence began, Haryana’s Manohar Lal Khattar government has snapped internet services in the district for two days. Prohibitory orders under Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) have been imposed in four districts, Nuh, Gurugram, as well as neighbouring Palwal and Rewari.
Additional security forces have been sent to Nuh and its borders have been sealed, police sources said.
Meanwhile, 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. Haryana Home Minister Anil Vij told ThePrint that the government’s priority is to ensure that the situation is brought under control, and law and order is restored.
According to a letter from the Union Ministry of Home Affairs, accessed by ThePrint, the central government is sending 15 companies of the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) — four companies of the Central Reserve Police Force (including two mahila companies), seven of the Rapid Action Force, and two each of the Border Security Force and the Indo Tibetan Border Police — to address the situation.
Both Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar and Leader of Opposition in the Assembly Bhupinder Singh Hooda appealed for calm.
In a press release, Khattar said the “state government is taking all necessary steps to ensure peace and order in Nuh”.
“We have deployed additional security forces in the district, and we are closely monitoring the situation. I appeal to everyone to cooperate with the police and administration to maintain peace,” he added.
Hooda called the violence “very unfortunate”. “I appeal to people to maintain peace and law and order,” he told news agency ANI.
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How it began
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, stonepelting was reported in several places, including in Gurugram’s Sohna, forcing the district administration to impose prohibitory orders.
Local residents in Nuh accused police and local authorities of negligence and apathy, citing some purportedly incendiary videos allegedly being 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.
“What happened today was looking very apparent for at least two days now. Manesar and Bajrangi (another alleged cow vigilante, Bittu Bajrangi) were posting videos with provocative messages and spewing venom at a particular community,” a local resident who didn’t want to be named told ThePrint.
“The other side was also replying to the messages with equal venom. That the stage was set for a faceoff was apparent to the local people. It’s surprising how the police and the local authorities couldn’t sense the gravity of the situation.”
Manesar was also scheduled to participate in the yatra, and while police sources told ThePrint that he wasn’t in Nuh at the time of the violence, videos that went viral on WhatsApp groups purportedly show he was present in the district.
Haryana Home Minister Vij said the state government’s immediate concern was to “restore peace”.
“We will definitely find out who are the people responsible for the incident and take stern action. We will also find out what were the shortcomings at the end of the police. But the immediate task is to restore peace,” Vij told ThePrint.
Aftab Ahmed, the Congress MLA from Nuh, blamed the violence on the “complete failure of the state machinery”.
“For the past several days, people associated with cow vigilante groups and other organisations considered close to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) were provoking the other side by holding panchayats and through announcement of yatras. The latest videos posted by Monu Manesar and Bittu Bajrangi proved to be the last straw,” Ahmed told ThePrint.
(Edited by Uttara Ramaswamy)
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