Uttar Pradesh Director General of Police OP Singh on Wednesday said that the violence in Kasganj in January was only a “group clash”, and has now been “effectively checked”, PTI reported. One person was killed and several people were injured in the violence.
Singh added that there have been no communal riots in the state for the last one year. “Tensions do arise due to group clashes in some districts but, overall, Uttar Pradesh has been a riot-free state in the past one year,” he said. “There was tension in Kasganj due to group clash but it was effectively checked. We contained its spread.”
On Tiranga yatras, he said, “The local administrations are being alerted and no one will be allowed to take law into their hands.”
Violence broke out in Kasganj on January 26 when a group of bike-borne men, believed to be associated with Hindutva groups, allegedly disrupted a Republic Day programme in a Muslim-dominated colony. They are believed to have come with saffron flags and the Indian tricolour and got involved in arguments with the residents.
Gun shots were fired by both sides, according to the police, and a young man named Chandan Gupta was killed. The police have so far arrested three people – Saleem, Salman and Asif Gymwala – in connection with Gupta’s death.
The violence in Kasganj continued for days, with mostly Hindu mobs rampaging through the town, attacking Muslims and setting fire to their shops and vehicles at many places. An independent fact-finding team had claimed the clashes were “pre-meditated and well-planned”, and called it an “engineered act of violence” to “spread communal hatred”.
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