BOMBAY (PTI)- Three persons were killed and six others injured when police fired at a stone pelting mob at Chembur suburb of this capital city of Maharashtra state on Oct. 10.
Trouble started when a group of people attacked the car of Thane Shiv Sena (Hindu fundamentalist group) chief Anand Dighe and police had to be called to disperse them. Dighe’s bodyguard fired a round in the air in self-defense, police said.
Dighe and other Shiv Sena workers were returning from a rally which was addressed by the Sena supremo Bal Thackeray.
Seven policemen were injured in the stone throwing.
On Oct. 13 a youth, believed to be a Shiv Sena activist, was killed when police opened fire at Kurla in northeast Bombay to quell rioting pro-Hindi Sena and Dali panther activists who rained stones and soda water bottles at a police posse.
Six people, three of them policemen, were reported injured in the clash between the two groups. The immediate provocation for the clash was the forced closure of shops by some persons in the morning, sub inspector, Subhash Divekar of Kurla police station said.
He said pro-Hindu Shiv Sena workers including 200 women took out a protest march at Kurla shouting “burn the police station” and “destroy Ambedkar statues.” However, the march was peaceful, he said adding, no arrests were made to avoid provoking the activists.
Police sources said that Dalits, a grouping of socalled low caste Hindus, from “Buddha Vihar Colony” and Shiy, Sena workers from “Netaji Nagar” at Kurla clashed shortly after noon. Tension had prevailed since Thursday after a mob broke into a Shiv Sena office, destroyed a statue of Shivaji, the legendary maratla king, and looted a hotel at the nearby Chembur area.
A police party which tried to disperse the clashing groups at Kurla Friday was pelted with stones and other objects. The police party then fired two rounds in “self-defense” injuring the youth who was rushed to the Rajawadi hospital where he was declared dead.
Article extracted from this publication >> October 20, 1989
