The District Administration on Sunday convened a meeting of the peace committee in order to restore harmony in the State Capital days after incidents of clashes between two groups and subsequent mob violence were given a communal colour on social media.
“Members of both the communities attended the meeting and vowed to maintain peace in the city. The police also attended the meeting and sought cooperation of the two communities in keeping the situation under control,” said Ranchi’s Superintendent of Police, Harilal Chouhan.
Meanwhile, the police have recovered the CCTV footage of the Ekra Mazjid area where a mob reportedly resorted to vandalism and severely injured a commoner on Friday evening in the course of a protest against mob violence. “We are scanning the CCTV footage and the culprits will not be spared,” said Chouhan.
Tension, however, has been simmering in Ranchi since Friday evening and the police are on their toes to avert any clash from snowballing into a conflagration here. Friday’s protest was triggered by misleading posts on social media that painted a communal picture of clashes between three youths and residents of a locality near the Birsa Munda Airport on Friday evening. The locals, police said, had got into a tussle with the three men, all in their early 20s, while they were clicking pictures in the area. A First Information Report (FIR) in connection with the case was later lodged with the Doranda Police Station.
On Friday night, members of a particular community vandalized property and stabbed one Vivek Srivastava with a knife during the course of the protest. Srivastava’s younger brother, Deepak, who was with him at the time of the incident, on Sunday said that the two brothers were attacked while they were crossing the Ekra Mazjid area on their two-wheeler.
Deepak told the police that he and his brother Vivek were stopped by around 10 to 12 men near Ekra Mazjid at around 10pm on Friday. The protestors allegedly asked their names and started assaulting them after they replied. “They snatched the key of our bike and started thrashing us. They used a sharp weapon to stab my brother,” said Deepak.
Ranchi MP Sanjay Seth and State Urban Development Minister C P Singh met Srivastava on Saturday at Medica Superspecialty Hospital, where he is currently undergoing treatment. Doctors from the hospital on Sunday said that Srivastava was out of danger.