M A I N   N E W S

Boy killed in B’lore police firing
Tribune News Service

Bangalore, January 21
Communal rioting in the IT city today left a 12-year-old boy dead and 25 others injured when the police fired on a rampaging mob, which had torched two buses and damaged several other vehicles besides looting shops in the Shivaji Nagar area here.

The mob also stabbed a police constable. Eight of the injured are police personnel. The state government, which had earlier claimed that the situation was under control, today accepted the Centre’s offer to rush two units of the Rapid Action Force here. The units are being rushed from Coimbatore and Hyderabad. The police has arrested 30 persons and detained around 300 persons.

The violence was sparked off in the central areas of the town, including Shivaji Nagar, Frazer Town and Bharathi Nagar, after buntings of the Virat Hindu Samai Utsav were pulled down. An enraged mob went on the rampage, resulting in communal clashes.

The violence had rocked the Shivaji Nagar and Bharati Nagar areas on Friday after clashes during a demonstration against Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s execution by the People’s Front led by senior Congress leader C.K. Jaffer Sharief and others. The violence took place between the two groups in Bharti Nagar police limits when the marching demonstrators had pulled down banners of the Virat Hindu Samai Utsav.

Night curfew has been imposed in Shivaji Nagar, Bharathi Nagar and Frazer Town localities. Police Commissioner Neelam Achuta Rao said the situation was under control with 40 battalions of the state police being posted in the sensitive areas.

Stray incidents of violence have also been reported from other areas like the Bangalore Cantonment and the Old Madras Road.