Violence outside Swaminarayan temple at Gadhada village

Ahmedabad, Mar 12 (UNI) Police today opened fire and lobbed teargas shells to disperse a stone-pelting mob outside the Swaminarayan Temple at Gadhada village in Bhavnagar district.

According to police, a dispute over the wall that separates the new Swaminarayan Temple from the old one, triggered the violence.

'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.

Some of the trustees had threatened to immolate themselves. When police tried to intervene, their followers pelted them with stones.

Several persons had been arrested in this connection, police said adding there were no casualties in the incident.

UNI