One killed, 5 injured in police firing near Yavatmal

Nagpur, Dec 8 (UNI) One person was killed and five others seriously injured when police opened fire today to disperse hundreds of farmers protesting the manner in which cotton was being graded and the delay in the procurement process at a purchase centre at Wani in Yavatmal district of Vidarbha region of Maharashtra.

Yavatmal district Civil Surgeon Dr Ashok Panbude said Dinesh Tukaram Gugal (25) died at a government hospital in Yavatmal tonight due to a bullet wound that he had sustained in the stomach.

Talking to reporters at his official residence here tonight, Deputy Chief Minister R R Patil, however, has denied the report about the death.

''The firing had not claimed any life. Gugal was undergoing treatment in the hospital,'' Mr Patil, who holds the Home portfolio, added.

Police had earlier resorted to a lathicharge after the farmers went berserk and later opened fire to disperse the agitated farmers, who indulged in heavy stone pelting.

Yavatmal district Superintendent of Police Abdur Rehman told UNI over telephone that a total of 60 persons, including 35 policemen, sustained minor injuries in stone-pelting by farmers after a dispute with employees of the Maharashtra State Cotton Growers' Cooperative Marketing Federation over the manner in which the cotton they had brought for sale was being graded.

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