MP: Communal Violence During Ram Navami, Khargone Under Curfew, Barwani Tense

Bhopal: With 77 people arrested so far, Khargone city remained under a curfew on Monday, a day after communal clashes broke out in Khargone district of Madhya Pradesh during a Ram Navami procession.

The incident left over a dozen people injured, including Khargone Superintendent of police Siddharth Choudhary ,who reportedly has a bullet injury in his left leg. According to police, there were cases of arson with reports of close to 10 houses and religious places set on fire.

Not only Khargone, the situation remained tense in adjourning Barwani district with reports of communal clashes in the communally sensitive Sendhwa city, located near Madhya Pradesh Maharashtra border.

Speaking to reporters in Bhopal, Home Minister Narottam Mishra said: “As many as 77 people have been detained and curfew has been imposed in a few pockets of the city. There is peace and enough force has been deployed.”

Mishra further said, “Jis ghar se pathar aae hai. Us ghar ko hi patharo kaa dher banaenge. The action will be taken after identifying them.” (The houses from where stones were thrown will be turned into rubble)

He added, “Seven police personnel, including SP Khargone, has been injured in the violence and a man name Shivam Shukla is gravely injured.”

Several videos of the clashes from Khargone have surfaced. In these videos a crowd of over 500 men assembled for Ram Navmi procession carrying loud speakers with DJs and were seen waving saffron flags outside a mosque located in Talab chowk locality near Khargone district headquarter.

Another videos shows police resorting to lathicharge and teargas shells to disburse the mob that is incessantly pelting stones on religious places and homes.

Locals claimed that the incident broke out after a few people objected to music being played out loud outside mosques. The clash that erupted in Talab Chowk spread like a wildfire in other parts of city where homes and shops were attacked and stones were from the both sides.

Interestingly, almost an hour after the clash broke out, Hindu hardliner BJP leader from Delhi Kapil Mishra (noted for his hate speech before the Delhi communal violence broke out), who was in Khargone to attend the Shriram Janmotsav Shobha Yatra procession, shared photos and videos of the Yatra saying, “Na Musa na Burhan, Bas Jai Shree Ram. Hamari Ramnavmi yatra khargone Madhya Pradesh me shuru.”

However, he was not seen after the incident.

According to Khargone collector Anugraha P there is no clarity on what triggered the clash but the locals claimed that it happened after provocative songs and slogans were raised outside the Talab Chowk mosque.

Speaking over the phone she said: “The clashes broke out at around 5 p.m soon after the procession was set out to start from Talab chowk locality near Khargone district headquarter and had barely moved half kilometre away when there were reports of stone pelting.

“Suddenly there was information of stone pelting and clashes in two to three different locations. During this there were reports of houses being burnt in two-three locations and it some areas the fire from one house spread and damaged nearby homes as well.”

After the first round of incident, the curfew was imposed in some pockets. But, the reports were begun to pouring in around 8 p.m that house and religious places were set on fire near Sarafa Market, Qazipura and other parts of the city.

After visiting the site, sitting Congress MLA from Khargone, Ravi Joshi, termed the communal clash a failure of policing. “There were no cops during rally which led to things getting out of hand. It’s a gross failure of policing,” he told reporters.

This is the second communal clash in the past six months in Khargone city. In September 2021, a communal clash broke out during Milad-un-Nabi procession where dozens of people were injured.

Close to 60-km from Khargone city, Sendhwa which has witnessed couple of communal clashes in last one year was also once again on the boil after clashes broke out during Ram Navami procession.