Violence rocks Bangalore, cops among fifty injured

A protest demonstration to condemn the execution of deposed Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein turned violent in Bangalore on Friday evening, leaving at least fifty persons including policemen injured in the clashes, which continued till late in the night.

Several vehicles were torched and shops were ransacked by unruly mobs in the communally sensitive Shivajinagar area of Bangalore. Eight policemen including an Assistant Commissioner of Police were injured when angry mobs turned their ire on the cops.

The protestors also threw stones at shops and religious places, besides looting a couple of homes, forcing the police to fire in the air to disperse the violent mobs. Pitched battles between youths belonging to rival communities continued till late on Friday evening.

The police managed to bring the situation under control by deploying more than 30 platoons of Karnataka State Reserve Police (KSRP) force in the affected areas. An uneasy calm prevailed in Shivajinagar and adjoining areas on Saturday with hundreds of policemen patrolling the lanes and narrow by-lanes of the locality.

Trouble began on Friday evening when youth belonging to the Muslim community were marching towards Shivajinagar stadium to attend the rally organized by the newly formed People’s Front to protest the hanging of Saddam Hussein. The youths carrying placards bearing Saddam’s photograph even burnt an effigy of US President George Bush.

The protest took a communal turn when the flames from the burning effigies also burnt the flags put up by the Sangh Parivar for the Hindu Virata Samavesha scheduled to be held in Bangalore on Sunday. When rival groups objected to the burning of flags put up by the Sangh Parivar, violence erupted with mobs beginning to burn down parked vehicles and pelting stones at shops and business establishments.

Police said the arsonists barged into a web-designing centre in the locality, damaged the computers and set them on fire. The mobs barged into several shops and houses and ransacked them.

Assistant Commissioner of Police Puttathimme Gowda, who rushed to the spot, was attacked by the mob with stones. He was rushed to a nearby hospital along with other injured policemen.

Police have stepped up security in the City in view of the Virata Hindu Samavesha convened by the Sangh Parivar to condemn religious conversions.Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy has sought to pin the blame for Friday’s violence on the organizers. “The organizers, who wanted to protest over the issue, should take full responsibility of the unsavoury incidents”, he said.