RAUTAHAT, JULY 9

Two groups clashed with each other over land related dispute in Rautahat's Chandrapur Municipality this morning, but due to the alertness of police, the situation did not escalate further.

A dispute had erupted between two groups of villagers in Bastipur Tol of Chandrapur Municipality-8 at around 10:00pm last night.

As the dispute took an ugly turn and resulted into a clash, police immediately reached the site and prevented the situation from spiraling out of control. Police had managed to take the situation under control by 4:00am this morning.

As the clash related to a land issue was getting worse, a few people fled on three motorbikes while the villagers burnt down six motorbikes and a scooter.

Though a police team reached the site early on, they couldn't take the situation under control until SP Siddhi Bikram Shah of Rautahat police came along in person with a reinforcement.

As the villagers were preparing to vandalise a house, it was the SP who talked to the irked villagers and convinced them to back away. Though the villagers were convinced by the police officer's words and backed off, tension remained almost the whole night.

'Had we used force during the night, it could cause human casualty, but our strategy to convince the villagers to back off worked and it averted anything worse,' said SP Shah, adding 10 persons injured in the clash are undergoing treatment.

The dispute and the clash was related to a land dispute.

According to the villagers, Shreeram Chaudhary of Bastipur had managed to bring a plot of one bigha and 18 kattha of public land under his ownership and sold the same. It was the same issue that had got almost the entire village to be against Shreeram Chaudhary.

As per sources, there was a discussion in the village last evening regarding returning the fraudulently sold land to public status again and the villagers also organised a feast in the village last evening. But Chaudhary also organised a separate feast at his home by inviting some 15 persons from outside, against the agreement with the villagers.

Later, a clash happened between the outsiders supporting Shreeram Chaudhary and the villagers.

According to police, situation has returned to normalcy now. A version of this article appears in the print on July 10, 2021, of The Himalayan Times.