Five police personnel wereinjured in the Charulia area of Asansol on Tuesday in clashes with locals over setting up of a quarantine centre, officials said.The civic body decided to convert a local health centre into a quarantine facility, they said.On Tuesday afternoon, when health and civic body officials visited the area for inspections, locals gathered and started heckling them, according to police sources.The locals started pushing and abusing them, following which the police were called in, a senior officer of the Asansol police commissionerate said.Seeing the police, the locals started hurling stones at their vehicles, he said."We then had to baton-charge and fire tear gas shells to control the situation," he added.Five police personnel, including the officer-in-charge of Charulia police station, were injured, he said."We also have reports about a few locals getting injured," the officer said.An investigation has been started and a hunt is on to nab those behind the incident, police said.The decision to set up the quarantine centre in the area was taken after a few positive cases of COVID-19 were reported from Asansol, in West Bengal's Paschim Bardhaman district, over the last few days, officials said.
