As many as 15 persons, including a woman and a journalist, sustained minor injuries on Thursday when police lobbed tear gas shells and fired water jets to disperse a Left youth wing protest march, which turned violent in front of the Secretariat here.
Around 100 activists of the Democratic Youth Federation of India and All India Youth Federation took out the march from the Martyr’s Square at Palayam to protest the police action against their activists in Kozhikode on Thursday.
The youth attempted to rush the security barricade in front of the Secretariat and got entangled in a push-and-pull match with the riot police deployed there.
The activists managed to wrest cane shields and batons from the grasp of few policemen in the front row. The men who brought up the rear of the protest march pelted the police with stones.
The police sounded their bugles and hoisted a red banner that declared the march as an unlawful assembly and ordered its members to disperse on their own or face the use of force.
The protestors ignored the warning and tried to rush the policemen again. The law enforcers responded by throwing back the stones the protestors had hurled at them. They then lobbed tear gas shells and doused the protestors with high pressure water from their truck mounted water cannon.
The protest blocked traffic on the arterial M.G. road for more than an hour.
The police were forced to divert public transport buses from the main road, leaving commuters stranded at bus stops for nearly two hours. The Cantonment police have registered a case of rioting and unlawful assembly in connection with the incident.
