MAIL TODAY, December 24, 2008
Communal rivalry claims a life in Ghaziabad
By Akash Vashishtha in Ghaziabad
A VIOLENT attack by a mob of a rival community on a group of eight people near Dehra village has left one person dead and a dozen others injured.
Contingents of the UP Provincial Armed Constabulary have been deployed in the area to prevent flaring up of communal conflict and any further attacks on the inhabitants of the area.
The district administration is closely monitoring the situation with deputy inspector general of police ( DIG) Aditya Mishra himself supervising the operations.
Police have already prevented a face- off situation between the residents of both villages — Dehra and Bajhera — after the news of attack spread.
The eight persons — Giriraj Sharma, Rajendra Sharma, Somvir, Surendra, Gajendra, Sunder, Ajay and Sonu — are from Bajhera village.
They were attacked and beaten up by an armed mob of around 40 men from nearby Dehra village around midnight on Monday. The victims were going for work at the Coca Cola factory in Ghaziabad.
One of the severely injured people, Giriraj Sharma, was rushed to a hospital where he succumbed to his injuries.
Post- mortem investigation was conducted during the night.
“ It was a fight for honour and our religious beliefs,” Prakash Singh, a resident of the area said. The recent clash between the groups of the two villages is part of a prolonged Hindu- Muslim rivalry. Significantly, Bajhera village is dominated by Brahmin community while the Dehra village is a Muslim dominated area.
“ A case under the IPC Sections 147, 148, 149, 323, 302 and 504 has been registered against 12 people on the complaint of Rajendra Sharma, a Bajhera resident. The rest are being identified,” said L. Ravi Kumar, SSP .
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