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Violence breaks out in Ballia, 2 students killed

Sharat Pradhan in Lucknow

Two students were killed and several injured in a clash between local police and college students in former prime minister Chandra Shekhar's constituency Ballia in eastern Uttar Pradesh yesterday.

While one student, Navin Pandey, was alleged to have been gunned down in police custody, another died of injuries in the violence that broke out as a consequence of Pandey's death, a government spokesman in the state capital Lucknow said.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Ram Prakash Gupta rushed a team of senior officials to Ballia town by helicopter last evening. To prevent recurrence of violence, this team led by Home Secretary Anuj Bishnoi decided to clamp indefinite curfew in the city, the spokesman said.

What the administration fears most now is retaliation by policemen, who had earlier been at the receiving end as a violent mob of students went on the rampage, setting ablaze four police outposts and three police vehicles and attacking men in khakhi.

According to Principal Home Secretary V K Mittal, "trouble was sparked by the death of Navin Pandey, a BEd student in the local Satish Chandra Degree College."

He maintained that "the student was killed when he was trying to fiddle with the 9mm service revolver of the sub-inspector in charge of Satni Sarai police outpost where Pandey had been brought for some questioning; and the revolver went off accidentally". He was rushed to hospital, but was declared "brought dead".

But as news of the student's death broke out, other students of the college collected outside the police outpost and attacked it, ransacking the place. Policemen on duty ran for their lives until reinforcements were brought in and the district magistrate ordered them to open fire, injuring at least five students, one of whom died later in the night, prompting the administration to place the city under curfew.

About 1,000 armed policemen, including 200 of the Rapid Action Force, have been deployed in the affected areas. Top police officers, including the additional director general of police (law and order) and the inspector general of the Special Task Force, have been told to camp in the town until the situation is brought fully under control, Mittal said.

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