The Hindu : Front Page : Youth killed as gang assaults two persons in Surathkal

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Sunday, Jan 11, 2009
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Youth killed as gang assaults two persons in Surathkal

Staff Correspondent

Mob goes berserk as the incident takes communal colour

Police suspect it to be work of Uday Poojary’s associates
The victim has been identified as college student

Rescue: Women and elderly persons being taken to safety in a police van in Surathkal on Saturday.

MANGALORE: Two persons were waylaid and attacked by an armed gang in broad daylight in the Krishnapura area of Surathkal near here on Saturday.

The attack has led to the death of one person and resulted in grievous injuries to the other.

According to eyewitness accounts, the victims were riding a motorcycle and the assailants, travelling by a car, cornered them.

Superintendent of Police N. Sateesh Kumar said: “The attack was prompted by gang rivalry and was intended to avenge the slaying of Udaya Poojary in 2003. We suspect that the associates of Udaya Poojary carried out the attack.”

According to him, the person who died was not the one the assailants were after. “The youth is a first year B.Com. student,” Mr. Kumar said.

Confirming this version, the local Congress leader Moideen Bava said the person who survived the attack had a criminal history. Mr. Bava told The Hindu at the hospital where a post mortem analysis was being conducted that it was a regrettable incident but it had no communal touch.

Yet, the attack soon took a communal hue. Stoked by rumour mongers, a large number of people gathered at the hospital and went berserk. The mob targeted anybody they could find, including journalists and the police.

A bus was stoned by the mob and its passengers sustained injuries. Two rounds of caning by the police only managed to fragment the mob. Split into smaller groups, the miscreants continued to target people and property. In one incident, a group of assailants targeted a 15-year-old boy behind an abandoned building. The boy was found lying beside a bush, bleeding profusely. He was taken to the hospital by the police.

Mr. Sateesh Kumar said the boy’s condition was stable and he was out of danger. His identity was not known.

Hundreds of people were stranded at Surathkal as public transport was affected. When normality returned, following the initial outbreak, the police quickly began transporting the stranded public in their own vans and buses.

Priority

Small convoys set off towards the interior villages of Kana, Kulai and beyond with police escort. Women, children and the elderly were given priority.

Tahsildar for Mangalore Taluk Raju Moghaveera has clamped prohibitory orders in the area under Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC). The order would be in force until January 13.

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