A tense situation grips the Jonakapuram-Moothakara coastal belt of Kollam city following a clash between two groups belonging to different communities on Friday.
Kollam City Police Commissioner S. Satheesh Bino, Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Rax Bobby Arwin, and 10 other police officers were injured when they intervened to bring the situation under control. Four persons who had been hacked by miscreants during the trouble were admitted to the District Hospital here. The police fired several rounds of tear gas shells to disperse the violent mob.
As tension mounted towards dusk, Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, prohibiting assembly of more than four persons in an area, was clamped on the area from Port Kollam to Tangasseri.
The police said that though the situation was under control, an uneasy calm prevailed. More police reinforcements were drawn in from Thiruvananthapuram and Alappuzha by 7 p.m.
Of late, traditional fishing crafts of fishermen not belonging to the area began landing at the Tangasseri fishing harbour complex to sell their catch. Their vessels are locally known as “store vallams”, because these have ample storage facility for the catch. These vessels fish at a stretch for three to four days and return with huge harvests to the auction halls.
‘Store vallams’
The local fishermen based at Moothakara objected to this because the arrival of bulk fish brought about a fall in fish prices caught by them and they tried to prevent the “store vallams”. And members of another community who are attached to the harbour as headload workers and fish traders came to the rescue of the “store vallams.”
It led to tension gripping the area. The police intervened and called both sides for talks at the Pallithottam police station on Friday morning.
The police claimed that things were amicably settled during the talks. But in the afternoon, a group from Moothakara allegedly threw stones at houses in the Jonakapuram area.
This immediately sparked violence in the area. Several houses on both sides were attacked. Reports said that at least 30 houses were attacked. The police said that about 20 persons had been taken into custody in connection with the violence.
