2 dead, 20 injured in Gujjar-police clashes in Haryana

Panipat, May 29 (UNI) Two people were killed and about 20 injured when police opened fire on Gujjar demonstrators who blocked the National Highway No 1 at Samalakha in Panipat district today.

Police fired rubber bullets and used water canons when thousands of demonstrators from the Gujjar-dominated villages in the district blocked traffic on the Delhi-Ambala highway in support of the ongoing agitation for the reservation of Gujjar community in neighbouring Rajasthan, sources here said.

Pappu, a 30-year-old youth of Kalayana village, died in the police firing. The agitators kept the body of the youth on the middle of the road and continued the blockade. As the police fired the rubber bullets and used water canons to disperse the crowd, a 70-year-old man died in the melee, the sources said.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda announced Rs five lakh each to the next of the kin of the deceased.

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