Dusk to dawn curfew imposed in Odisha’s Soro
Odisha Sun Times Bureau
Soro, Sep 12:
Police today imposed dusk to dawn (6 PM to 6AM) curfew in Soro town of Odisha’s Balasore district following incidents of violence last night.
“19 platoons of forces have been deployed. Apart from that civil police have been deployed. ADG (Law and Order) and DIG (Eastern range) are camping here. The curfew will remain in force from 6PM today till 6AM tomorrow, its absolute curfew no movement will be allowed,” informed Niti Sekhar, SP Balasore.
While prohibitory orders under section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) were relaxed for four hours today, the district administration has announced a relaxation in prohibitory orders from 8AM to 2PM tomorrow.
The relaxation in the prohibitory orders has been allowed in view of Id-ul-Zuha festival of the Muslim community tomorrow. While the district administration has granted permission to the community to hold mass prayers during the relaxation, however, no processions will be allowed.
“In view of the festival of our Muslim brothers tomorrow we are allowing them to hold prayers. We have strictly prohibited processions and other programmes,” said Pramod Das, Collector Balasore.
Barring inter-state traffic and movement of essential services on the national highway, all other vehicular movement has come to a standstill.
While policemen in posses guard all intersections, all entry points to the town have been sealed.
The decision to impose curfew was taken after stocktaking of the situation by ADG (Law and Order) Satyajit Mohanty. The meeting was attended by DIG, SP, Collector and Commandants of 5th &7th Battalion OSAP.
It may be mentioned here that two groups had clashed on Saturday over immersion of Ganesh idol leading to violence.
Following violence police and paramilitary forces on Sunday conducted a flag march in the sensitive areas of the town where Section 144 of CrPC was imposed following the group clash.
Two groups had clashed on Saturday night at around 9 pm when immersion procession was passing through Pathan Mahalla in Soro market.
An altercation ensued between two groups followed by brick-batting, stone and bottle pelting in which at least five people were injured.
Further, some miscreants set fire to tyre repair workshops and a poultry farm on Sunday night leading to the heightening of tension.
Police have arrested nine persons and detained 30 others in this connection till reports last came in.
Comments are closed.