Police fired on rioters, killing one person, after so-called Hindu ”untouchables” and rich Sikh farmers clashed with swords and iron rods and set fire to vehicles, leaving 20 injured, police said on Friday.
Those injured at the religious fair on Thursday night included four police officers. At least five of the people admitted to a hospital were in serious condition, said Senior Superintendent of Police Varinder Kumar. Looting continued in the area, police said.
Police fired to prevent rioting after the clash at an annual fair at the mausoleum of a locally revered holy man in Punjab state’s Tallan village, some 96 kilometers south-east of the Sikh religious hub of Amritsar.
Clashes between police and the ”untouchables”, or Dalits, continued on Friday. Police fired tear gas as hundreds of Dalits blocked traffic on the Grand Trunk Road, one of India’s busiest highways.
Dalits belong to the lowest rung of India’s centuries-old Hindu caste hierarchy. Conservative Hindus consider them outcasts and call them ”untouchables”.
Jat Sikhs are farmers of a warrior caste and generally look down on Dalits.
At the fair, a member of the Jat community made an announcement on the public address system, asking young Dalit men to move away from the enclosures where Sikh women were sitting. The Dalits took this as an insult, and asked the organisers to stop the programme.
”The verbal duel later turned into a violent clash in which both communities used iron rods, swords and shovels,” said Kumar. – Sapa-AP