Four injured in police firing

Bhavnagar, Mar 12 (UNI) Four persons were seriously injured when police opened fire today to disperse a stone-throwing mob that clashed over a long-pending dispute over a wall separating the new Swaminarayan temple from the old one at Gadhada village in the district.

A Deputy Superintendent of Police, a police inspector and four others were injured in stone pelting by rival groups, police said.

DSP Vaghadiya and police inspector Patel were among the injured.

Those injured in police firing were Ghanshyam Bhagat (48), Gajendra Nanku Gohil (26), Rajendra Nandlal Parmar (17) and Jignesh Harshadrai Soni (17). They were admitted to the Takhtasinghji Hospital.

Baldevprasad Swami, Bhaktiprasad Guru Murali Manohar Dasji, Kothari Ghanshyamswami Vallabhdasji and Haribhakt Dhirubhai Mandawiya were injured in the stone-pelting.

According to police, the violence was the result of dispute over the wall that separates new Swaminarayan Temple from the old one.

''The trustees and their followers of the two temples had reportedly been fighting over the territory of their temples for quite some time. Each side wanted to extend the boundaries of their temples' premises,'' a police officer told UNI.

Today, some trustees had threatened to immolate themselves. When police tried to intervene, the trustees' followers pelted them with stones, said the officer.

UNI