Clashes broke out between anti-CAA protesters and police in the old city area of Aligarh, following incidents of arson and stone pelting on late Sunday afternoon, said an official.
The police fired tear gas shells to disperse the mob which was vandalising property and throwing stones at security personnel in upper Kot area of the Kotwali police station, said Aligarh District Magistrate Chandra Bhushan Singh.
The violence broke out at spot where some women protesters were holding a dharna since Saturday on the Mohamed Ali Road leading to the Kotwali police station with the police trying to evict protesters from there, he said.
The trouble began when the police at around 5 PM tried to persuade women protesters at Upper Kot near Kotwali to evict them from the road, he said. “We told them that women protesters were already holding a protest at Eidgah and they would not be permitted to hold another such protest near Kotwali,” said Singh.
He said “even as efforts were underway to convince women to leave the area with prominent Muslim citizens of the area, including the Sahar mufti Abdul Khalid trying to defuse the situation, mayhem broke out and brick-batting started..”
The District Magistrate said police used tear gas shells to disperse the mob. “An electricity department transformer was set afire, but the police managed to douse the flames before they could spread,” he said.
Situation under control
Describing the situation in Upper Kot area as “tense, but under control” Singh said that “intense patrolling of the affected areas is underway and the police are trying to trace out those who were “instigating” the women protesters at Upper Kot since yesterday”
There were also reports of injuries to some people but the exact number of those injured in clashes is yet to ascertained, said official sources. The clashes in the old city area broke out shortly after a Bhim Army-led march by hundreds of anti-CAA protesters heading to the district Collectorate earlier were stopped midway by police and Rapid Action Force jawans.
Stopped by police, the protesters, however, had headed towards the Eidgah area in the city where another group of anti-CAA women protesters had been holding an indefinite dharna for the past three weeks.
As the Bhim Army-led protesters, including women, were stopped by police from moving ahead after they crossed over the Katpula Bridge from the old city, they decided to join women protesters in the Eidgah area. The protesters had taken out the march on a call by Bhim Army chief Chandra Shekhar.
Shops in some areas near Kotwali had downed their shutters.
FIR lodged
Aligarh SSP Rajmuni, who took over the charge as the district police only last night, had earlier told media persons that following the abortive march, an FIR has been lodged against three persons at the Delhi Gate police station for trying to violate prohibitory orders and breach peace in the city.
The new SSP said he was monitoring the situation arising out of the anti-CAA protests, going on both at the AMU and the old city area. He had said our “channels of communications with protesters are going to remain open but it does not mean we will allow anybody to disturb the city’s law and order”.