In a second incident of police firing in as many days, at least one person was killed and 11 others wounded after a mob attacked and seriously injured over 20 policemen and set ablaze three police vehicles in lower Assam's Sonitpur district today.
The clash broke out at Baghmari, near here, when a large mob from various char (riverine) areas and other villagers angry over the blocking of a private road by a PSU attacked the police, official sources said.
There has been a long-pending dispute between a unit of Power Grid Corporation Corporation of India and the villagers on the use of private road passing through the plant. When PGCIL blocked the road by putting up a boundary wall, the villagers attacked the plant's employees.
When the police arrived at the spot at around 5.30 AM, the mob turned its ire on the personnel and seriously injured more than 20 of them, the sources said.
The police first fired rubber bullets to control the mob, which threw stones and set ablaze three police vehicles. The police then opened fire in which one villager was killed and 11 others were injured, they said.
Later, the mob blocked national highway 52 which connects the district headquarters Tezpur to Dhemaji and other parts of Arunachal Pradesh at Baghmari demanding Rs 20 lakh compensation for the dead, the sources said.
The 45-year old victim, who died on the spot, has been identified and six of the injured have been admitted to a local hospital while two others were sent to Gauhati Medical College Hospital.
Sonitpur district deputy commissioner Tapan Chandra Sarma said some 'ill-motivated' people had instigated the villagers against PGCIL.
Two persons were yesterday killed and more than 15 injured, including senior police officials, in police firing and mob violence, following which curfew was clamped in two areas of Assam's Goalpara district.
The violence had broken out in Mailapathar area near Rakshashini forest after the body of a 50-year old cowherd, who was missing since Sunday, was recovered yesterday morning, according to official sources.
