By IANS
Chandigarh : Dozens of people including policemen were injured Wednesday when members of the Dalit community clashed with police in several towns of Haryana after a youth’s murder while neighbouring Punjab also witnessed violent protests.
The clashes followed a shutdown call by the Dalit community to protest the killing of a youth, Rakesh alias Lara, by three unidentified assailants at the Samata Chowk in Gohana town of Sonepat district Monday night.
Tension spread to the neighbouring Punjab with Dalit community members protesting in Amritsar, Jalandhar and Hoshiarpur.
In Haryana, police had to resort to cane charge at Yamunanagar, Rohtak, Karnal and Bhiwani towns to control protesters. In Yamunanagar, the protesters damaged several vehicles.
Twenty people, mostly policemen, were injured as protesting Dalits threw stones.
Gohana town in Sonepat district, which witnessed violent protests Tuesday after the overnight murder, saw sporadic clashes between protestors and the police.
Sonepat deputy commissioner D.P.S. Nagal said the situation in the town was under control.
“We urge people not to get carried away by rumours. There is no communal tension in this town,” Nagal told reporters.
Angry mobs took to the streets in Sirsa, Karnal and Panchkula to protest the killing.
On Tuesday, as protesters clashed with police in Gohana, several people were injured and a 60-year-old man was killed when a vehicle hit him while the police were chasing protesters.
Lara, from the Valmiki community, was one of the accused in the August 2005 murder of Baljit Siwaich, a Jat youth. The killing then had led to violence against the Valmikis after miscreants set on fire nearly 100 houses belonging to the community.
The Haryana government had handed over the probe into both incidents to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) as violence between the two communities spread to other parts of the state. Lara was later acquitted of murder charge by a CBI court.
Senior police officials here said Wednesday that the situation was under control in the state though some untoward incidents were reported.
Police held meetings with leaders of the Dalit and Jat communities at various places to prevent clashes between them.