Jamshedpur Police have refused to confirm the molestation incident on record, saying no complaint has been lodged with them
Jamshedpur:
Hasan Ahmed lives right behind the Gandhi Maidan, and was out on the streets where the clashes first started in Jamshedpur on Monday.
He says he was not an eyewitness to the molestation but heard some drug addicts were involved in the incident.
He "heard it's that incident which started the violence, some of which he saw with his own eyes before rushing back home".
The row first flared as a communal clash and then in violence between protesting Hindu groups and police on Tuesday.
"We were watching from a distance when the trouble started. We tried to disperse the crowd. Then stone pelting started and a rumour went around that a temple has been destroyed," says Mr Ahmed
Most local residents around the area insist that it was an incident of molestation that triggered the unrest.
The squabble started right outside a fair at Jamshedpur's Gandhi Maidan, in the city's Muslim dominated pocket Mango and snowballed into a major confrontation on Monday afternoon.
The Jamshedpur Police have refused to confirm the molestation incident on record, saying no complaint has been lodged with them and no eyewitness found.
But the violence continued on the second day after Hindu organisations Bajrang Dal and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad led protests that descended into chaos, residents say.
"I don't want to say what incident led to this but yes, we have made both preventive arrests and actual arrests," Chandan Jha, a senior police official in Jamshedpur, said.
"We will make more arrests irrespective of political affiliations," he added.
However, questions have been raised on the police response in the first two hours of the incident.
Cops say they did not have adequate numbers initially -- a situation, they say, was corrected within a few hours.
He says he was not an eyewitness to the molestation but heard some drug addicts were involved in the incident.
He "heard it's that incident which started the violence, some of which he saw with his own eyes before rushing back home".
The row first flared as a communal clash and then in violence between protesting Hindu groups and police on Tuesday.
"We were watching from a distance when the trouble started. We tried to disperse the crowd. Then stone pelting started and a rumour went around that a temple has been destroyed," says Mr Ahmed
Most local residents around the area insist that it was an incident of molestation that triggered the unrest.
The squabble started right outside a fair at Jamshedpur's Gandhi Maidan, in the city's Muslim dominated pocket Mango and snowballed into a major confrontation on Monday afternoon.
The Jamshedpur Police have refused to confirm the molestation incident on record, saying no complaint has been lodged with them and no eyewitness found.
But the violence continued on the second day after Hindu organisations Bajrang Dal and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad led protests that descended into chaos, residents say.
"I don't want to say what incident led to this but yes, we have made both preventive arrests and actual arrests," Chandan Jha, a senior police official in Jamshedpur, said.
"We will make more arrests irrespective of political affiliations," he added.
However, questions have been raised on the police response in the first two hours of the incident.
Cops say they did not have adequate numbers initially -- a situation, they say, was corrected within a few hours.
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