Eight people were injured when members of two communities fought a pitched battle over taking out of Ram Navmi procession in Sayed Nagar of Kalyanpur area in Kanpur late Tuesday evening. Panic spread in the area after the rival groups resorted to indiscriminate firing and lobbed hand-made bombs during the clash. Police had to resort to cane charge to control the mobs after they tried to manhandle them.
A heavy police force, led by senior superintendent of police (SSP) Ajay Kumar Mishra, district magistrate Raushan Jacob and city’s additional DM Avinash Singh rushed to the site and tried to resolve issue.
The religious procession, containing dozens of vehicles, began from a temple in Rawatpur and was supposed to pass through various localities, including Maswanpur, Raushan Nagar, Sayed Nagar, Awas Vikas colony before ending at the temple.
When it reached Sayed Nagar, the organisers took alternative lanes and by-lanes as the traditional route was badly damaged.At one point the residents stopped the procession by parking hand-driven carts in the passage. This led to the clash and soon thousands of people joined in. However, before things could go out of hand, the DM and SSP managed a solution to the dispute following which the procession ‘rath’ passed through the lane but the devotees and other vehicles went through the traditional route.
