Over 130 people detained for communal riots in Maharashtra’s Akola

TIL Desk/National/Ahmednagar/ Communal violence in Akola city and Shevgaon village in Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra in the last two days has posed a challenge to the police to prevent potential flare-ups in other areas, while more than 130 people have been detained so far after the clashes left one person dead and 13 others injured.

While state minister Girish Mahajan, who belongs to the Bharatiya Janata Party, claimed that the violence in Akola was possibly “pre-planned”, deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said there are some organisations and people who want the state to be unstable, but the government will teach them a lesson.

One person was killed and eight others, including two policemen, were injured, in a clash that broke out on Saturday night in the sensitive Old City area of Akola over a religious post on social media, prompting the police to clamp curfew in some pockets, police had said. Members of the two groups hurled stones at each other and indulged in large-scale vandalism. The rioters set on fire some two-wheelers and four-wheelers during the violence.