No fresh violence was reported in Jamshedpur city in Jharkhand on Sunday after the lynching of seven people on Thursday, though anger and anxiety were palpable in certain areas of the town.
“Prohibitory orders under Section 144 were imposed from 10 p.m. on Saturday night to 6 a.m. on Sunday. Now the orders have been lifted. The situation is under control and there is adequate deployment of security forces,” Amit Kumar, District Collector ( DC) East Singhbhum told The Hindu .
There was tension in Jugsalai area of the industrial city where final rites of two of the victims — Vikash Verma and Gautam Verma — were performed amid a large deployment of police. The victims, both brothers, were lynched at Nagadih on Thursday allegedly over rumours of child-lifting.
In addition to the deployment of police and Rapid Action Force ( RAF), meetings were organised by community leaders in an attempt to ease the tensions.
Iswar Soren, a prominent tribal leader held a meeting at Karandi on the outskirts of the city.
Meanwhile, 18 people have been in the arrested in connection with the lynching and the subsequent violence, the DC said.
On Thursday seven people were lynched in two separate incidents — four at Raj Nagar in Saraikela-Kharwawan district and three at Nagadih under Bagbera police station. Those killed at Raj Nagar were Muslims, said to be cattle traders while in Nagadi the dead were all Hindus.
“14 persons have been arrested from Mango in the Jamsedhpur town. While ten of them were involved in stone pelting on Saturday, four have been behind orchestrating the violence on Saturday,” Mr Kumar said.
Violence broke out in Mango, a suburb in Jamsedhpur city on Saturday when members of the Muslim community had called for a bandh protesting the Raj Nagar incident. Certain shops were open in the area and that triggered large-scale violence on Saturday.
The police and administration have appealed to the people not to believe rumours and have carried appeals in local newspapers also. The State government has also announced a compensation of ₹2 lakh to the kin of each of the victims.
Rumours of child-lifting gangs operating in certain parts of the State including Jadugoda in East Singhbhum district had surfaced on Whatsapp on May 10.
Senior officials told The Hindu there seems to be a chain from where the Whatsapp messages originated. The police were trying to ascertain whether the rumours were systematically floated as a part of conspiracy to destabilise law and order or were just acts of mischief. According to locals, in certain areas parents stopped sending their children to school following the rumours.
“While facebook and other social media activities can be monitored it. It is difficult to keep a check Whatsapp forwards,” a senior police official said.
“We are also trying to tell people that they should not believe everything which comes as in Whatsapp forwards,” the District Collector said.
