Curfew was imposed late on Friday night in the Massori police station area of Ghaziabad following violence and arson after the alleged desecration of a holy book in Dasna area. Six persons were killed after the police opened fire.
Over a dozen policemen were seriously injured as protesters torched the Massori police station and a restaurant and set a police vehicle and some private vehicles on fire. They also blocked the national highway and pelted stones on the car of MP Rajendra Agarwal.
The deceased were identified by authorities as Asif, Waheed, Lukman, Amir, Wasim and Hayat. Two of them belonged to Meerut.
The protesters claimed that torn papers from the scripture were found at Adhyatmik Nagar station platform which angered members of the community and led to violent protests.
“A member of our community saw pages of the holy Quran on which objectionable and abusive words were written along with a mobile number. He showed the pages to senior community members in the town, who took the pages to the police station but instead of taking any action, the police ignored the complaint,” said Ayub Ali, an advocate and a local Rashtriya Lok Dal leader. District magistrate Aparna Upadhyay and SSP Prashant Kumar said that six persons were killed in the incident. A sub-inspector and head constable are critical. Heavy police force and a PAC battalion were deployed to bring the situation under control.
ADG (law and order) Jagmohan Yadav said that the situation is tense and adequate force has been deployed. Meanwhile, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav has announced a compensation of `5 lakhs each to the kin of the deceased and `50,000 each for the injured.
The CM has further directed the commissioner of the Meerut division to probe the incident and submit his report soon.