One was killed in police firing at Harsul in Trimbak taluka in Nashik district of north Maharashtra on Tuesday when a group of irate protesters went on the rampage, setting on fire scores of shops, vehicles and property and injuring at least 30 cops in stone-pelting.
After resorting to lathicharge and lobbing tear gas shells to quell the rioting mobs that indulged in stone throwing and went on an arson spree, police opened fire at the rioters, injuring one of them critically, identified as Ramdas Gangram Buth (26). Ramdas succumbed to bullet injuries later in the hospital.
Additional Superintendent of Police Prashant Mohite and Depuyy Superintendent of Police Pravin Munde were among 30-odd police personnel injured in the stone-pelting incident indulged by the rioters.
The communal flare-up at Harsul was an off-shoot of the discovery of the body of an Adivasi youth, Bhagirat Choudhary, belonging to a Muslim farmer family on June 7. Given that Bhagirath was a good swimmer, his relatives suspected foul play and said that the death could not have been due to drowning. They demanded that police should conduct an autopsy to ascertain the cause of Bhagirath’s death.
The Advasi supporters of the deceased leader had called for a bandh in the town.