Ahmedabad riots: How violence triggered in the name of cow slaughter

A 20-year-old youth lost his life after he sustained injuries during the riots in Ahmedabad's Shahpur area on Sunday. Tension gripped Ahmedabad's communally sensitive Shahpur, located in the old city area, on the eve of Bakr Eid.

What triggered riots in Ahmedabad's Shahpur?

• A crime branch team, on Saturday night, chased a tempo in Shahibaug area after they they suspected that the vehicle had cow beef.

• Cow slaughter is banned in Gujarat and selling cow meat is a punishable offence in the state.

• The team nabbed two suspects, from the vehicle and learnt about a third person, believed to be a resident of Shahpur.

• On Sunday evening, the crime branch team began a search operation in Shahpur area to hunt the third suspect down, which angered the locals.

• Over 200 people in the area agitated over the search by police for a suspect involved in alleged cow slaughter.

• The agitators pelted stones, threw crude bombs and even fired bullets on the police team.

• Rioters, reportedly, managed to snatch the service revolver of a police sub-inspector and surrounded the cops who arrived at the spot to search for the accused.

• One policeman was severely injured in the stone pelting.

• Police had to resort to fire tear gas shells to disperse the rioters.

• More than 60 tear gas shells were fired by cops to control the agitated mob.

Youth killed in firing

• Ashraf Khan Pathan, a resident of Shahpur, succumbed to his injuries in a local hospital on Monday.

• He was declared dead at 9 am on Monday by doctors due to multiple organ failure.

• He was hit with a bullet on Sunday evening where locals clashed with cops.

• However, it is not yet clear whether the bullet which hit Ashraf was fired from a police weapon or from some other gun.

• Cops have sent the bullet to the forensic department to ascertain whether it was fired from a service revolver or from some other gun.

What cops are saying?

"When crime branch officials were searching for the suspect near Rangila police post on Sunday evening, some locals got angry and started throwing stones at the police. When stone pelting intensified, we called in extra force to control the situation," said City commissioner of police Shivanand Jha.

What are locals saying?

• Locals are calling the police probe a ‘cooked up story' to justify previous arrest made by the cops in the October 3 Mirzapur (Gujarat) clash.

• As per locals the cops first claimed to have come to check on beef but when the arguments heated up they claimed that they wanted to round up suspects.

• The locals are claiming that without any concrete evidence the cops went on questioning the residents and threatened to round up all those protesting and this fuelled clashes.