Rumours fail to incite violence, city peaceful

With signs of life returning to normalcy, the curfew at Dariapur was lifted at 3 pm on Monday after being imposed for two days at a stretch. On Sunday evening, curfew was relaxed for two hours for women and children. As soon as the curfew was lifted, men, young and old came out of their houses to get some fresh air and catch up on neighbourhood gossip.

But with frayed nerves all around, as soon as there was a slight collusion between a scooterist and some people, the situation got tense and men from both communities poured onto the streets. Rumours began floating in thick and fast with stories of stabbing, arson and stone throwing. However, all these proved false later on, but for about an hour the situation was tense with senior police officers patrolling the street along with other policemen in a show of strength.

The Rapid Action Force and the SRPF were also there in numbers. The situation returned to normal after an hour. Though there was no incident of violence in the city on Monday, however, incidents of looting and damaging of shops at Bhoot Ni Ambli, Astodia, were reported. The incident occurred at 1 am on Monday when some miscreants broke wooden cabins manufacturing rickshaw hoods and damaging property worth Rs 10,000.

Earlier, just after the curfew was lifted there was some minor stone throwing at Jordan Road, Dariapur. Meanwhile, in an unrelated incident during a Kabbadi match at Bapunagar, two boys from different schools had an alteration and a boy belonging to the minority community stabbed another boy. Though this incident had no connection to the recent riots but rumours of the stabbing spread like wild fire in the city.

Republished from The Asian Age