2 bodies found after communal clash in Chhattisgarh’s Bemetara: police

“It’s a case of murder. The minority community was cautioned not to leave the village but the father-son duo did not listen to us. They have several goats and took them out of the village for grazing. They went around one-and-a-half kilometers outside the village where unknown people attacked them with sticks,” said Bemetara collector Padum Singh Alma.

On Saturday, Bhuneshwar Sahu, 23, a labourer, was killed during a communal clash between two communities in Biranpur. The clash took place after two school students from different communities got into a fight. One of the boys suffered an injury on his hand, which led to their families getting involved. Soon, it snowballed into a clash between the two communities.

On Monday, right-wing groups like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and Bajrang Dal, backed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), enforced a shutdown across Chhattisgarh.

More than 700 security personnel from five districts were posted in Biranpur to ensure no untoward incident takes place. Member of Parliament and BJP state in charge for Chhattisgarh, Arun Sao, and his 200-odd supporters were stopped from going to the victim’s house in Biranpur and bundled away in a police van along with his supporters.

This also led to stone pelting on police in which a journalist got injured. A successful bandh was imposed in the state’s Raipur, Bemetara, and Kawardha districts until the afternoon.