Rumour of meat thrown at temple sparks tension in Bengal

Rapid Action Force (RAF) personnel were deployed to the area and a curfew imposed under section 144 of the CrPC. (Express File Photo/Sahil Walia)

Rumours of meat being thrown at a temple sparked tension in Chaltaberia area of Duttapukur in North 24 Parganaas district on Holi, Friday. Mobs blocked roads and shouted slogans but violence was not reported. Rapid Action Force (RAF) personnel were deployed to the area and a curfew imposed under section 144 of the CrPC. Till the time of filing this report, no one had been arrested. “The situation is under control now and peace is returning to the area,” said a senior state police officer. “We have made adequate deployment of police personnel.”

He, however, could not confirm reports of meat being thrown at temples. The area is around 40 kms from Baduria, which had seen communal clashes last year in which one person had died. Local sources said a minor such clash had happened on January 14 this year too.

Describing North 24 Parganas and other Bangladesh-bordering districts as ‘sensitive’, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had earlier asked the district police to be on high alert on Holi.

She said that mischief mongers would attempt to create trouble on the occasion and called on the force to stop the cattle smuggling from Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan to Bangladesh. Massive communal violence rocked Baduria and Basirhat areas near the India-Bangladesh international border of the district in May last year over a derogatory Facebook post by a minor which went viral in social media.