At least 24 detained for violence during Ram Navami processions in Gujarat's Vadodara

Police have detained 24 persons for allegedly hurling stones at two Ram Navami processions in communally-sensitive areas in Vadodara city of Gujarat, a top official said on Friday. The incidents had occurred on Thursday when Ram Navami was celebrated. Shamsher Singh, the police commissioner in Vadodara, claimed that everything were under control and that people were going about their daily business. 

He said, "We have so far detained 24 persons in connection with the stone pelting incidents that occurred during the Ram Navami processions in the city on Thursday. They will be formally arrested soon after the registration of first information reports (FIRs). The situation is completely under control and normalcy was restored yesterday itself."

When two different Ram Navami processions passed through the city's politically charged neighbourhoods of Fatehpura and neighbouring Kumbharwada, stones were thrown at them. 

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The police said that at least two people were hurt when a crowd threw stones at them in Kumbharwada. Manisha Vakil, a local BJP MLA, was a part of the march that was attacked in Kumbharwada.

In some videos of the incident, individuals can be seen rushing for cover as stones are thrown at them. Devotees also drag a chariot carrying a statue of Lord Ram to a safer location to protect it from the stones.

Hours before that incident, stones were thrown at a Ram Navami procession, organised by the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) and Bajrang Dal, in Fatehpura area. Hindu organisations claimed that officers were not present when the procession, which travels this path every year, was attacked, despite the fact that they were aware that similar acts of violence had happened in the area in the past as well.

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Following the incident, Ketan Trivedi, the head of the Bajrang Dal's Vadodara section, asserted that the miscreants' assault on the Ram Navami parade was a "planned conspiracy" and that similar incidents had occurred previously on numerous occasions.

(With PTI inputs)