Hyderabad, 14 May: Four persons died after police opened fire to control a communal clash in Rajendranagar under the Cyberabad Police Commissionerate today morning. Police said that trouble at Sikh Chowni in Kishanbhag area of Bahadurpura where a religious flag of Sikh community was burnt last night by some miscreants. Sources said that the issue was resolved last night and things were brought to normalcy after some heated arguments between both communities but in the early morning Sikh youths armed with swords started assembling at the spot where police personnel were deployed but they didn’t act to control the volatile situation and remained mare spectators only to turn the situation worse.
The armed Sikhs attacked Muslim houses in Sikh Chowni and set ablaze properties. Muslims from neighboring areas started to assemble after news of attacks started to spread which led to stone pelting between both communities. 10 private vehicles were burned down by rioters.
Rapid Action Force and Border Security Force officers which were stationed for election security was immediately called in. Paramilitary forces first fired tear gas shells and then opened indiscriminate firing over Muslim stone-pelters killing one on the spot seriously giving lethal injuries to 20 others; another youth later succumbed to injury in olive hospital.
Sources claim till now four persons have succumbed to bullet injuries, all of them Muslims, and their dead bodies have been shifted to Gandhi Hospital.
Some of the injured are currently under treatment in Nanal Nagar Premier hospital, which includes women and children injured in clashes.
Sec 144 and unofficial curfew have been imposed in Rajender Nagar police station limits with whole of Kishanbhag getting barricade by RPF personnel. Cyberabad Police commissioner C.V. Anand visited the spot and organized paramilitary and police picketing at sensitive spots in the area.