At least 250 people have been injured after local residents set vehicles and a police station on fire and hurled stones over the demolition of an “illegally built” madrasa and an adjoining mosque in Haldwani, officials said. A curfew was imposed in the city on Thursday night. A majority of people injured in the violence erupted after the demolition of the madrasa at Malik ka Bagicha in city’s Banbhoolpura area were police personnel. The remaining were municipal workers, officials said. The injured also included Haldwani SDM.
In the state capital Dehradun, Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami held a meeting with senior officials, including Chief Secretary Radha Raturi and DGP Abhinav Kumar to review the situation in Haldwani, according to an official statement.
Besides imposition of curfew in entire Haldwani, shoot-at-sight orders against rioters were also issued in the city, the statement said. The chief minister urged everyone to maintain calm and asked officials to deal sternly with “anarchic elements”, it added. As the violence escalated, all the shops and education institutions in Haldwani were closed.
The tension reached a boiling point when government officials, accompanied by policemen, attempted to raze the illegal structures following a court order. The madrasa and mosque had been declared illegal by the administration, leading to their demolition. However, this move was met with fierce resistance from residents in the Vanbhulpura area of Haldwani.
Municipal Commissioner Pankaj Upadhyay informed media that the madrasa and namaz site were illegal, highlighting that the Haldwani civic body had previously seized three acres of nearby land and sealed the structures. The Chief Minister, in a meeting with senior officials, discussed prohibitory orders and the necessity for a shoot-at-sight policy against rioters to control the escalating unrest.