10 hurt after Manimajra residents clash with cops over woman’s death

Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, April 1

A woman’s collapse and subsequent death in the middle of a street lead to clashes between police and residents of Bangla Colony in Manimajra, police said on Wednesday.

Constable Reena Kumari said she and her colleague Sunita were on patrol duty during the ongoing curfew in Shanti Nagar’s Street No 10 they were alerted that a woman had collapsed in the adjourning street. The two found the woman unconscious and waited while a local resident called the emergency number for a PCR and an ambulance.

In the meantime, police said, the woman’s family and some residents were informed that she had collapsed while she was being detained for having violated curfew orders. The family and some other residents came armed with sticks and rods and attacked police personnel, forcing the latter to retaliate, police said.  

A video of the incident shows some residents throwing rocks at police personnel and the latter using lathis on the residents. Another video doing the rounds shows some residents blocking the path of the ambulance that was called and pelting it with rocks, forcing the driver to speed away from the spot.

Police said that the woman was later taken to Government Multi-Specialty Hospital (GMSH) in Sector 16 in a PCR vehicle, where doctors declared her brought dead.

Four cops---three constables, including the two women, and a sub-inspector---and six locals were wounded in the clash. Among the residents wounded was a 17-year-old, police said.

The wounded were taken to the Civil Hospital, Manimajra. An ambulance and a PCR vehicle were also damaged in the incident.

Police have registered a case for wrongful restraint (section 341), voluntarily causing hurt (323), criminal intimidation (506), rioting (147 and 148), unlawful assembly for common object (149), causing hurt to prevent public servant from doing his duty (332); assaulting public servant (353), obstructing public servant from discharging duty (186), and disobeying public servant (188) of the Indian Penal Code but have made no arrests.

Meanwhile, the cause of the woman’s death is still unclear. When this report was filed,  police were still awaiting results of an autopsy conducted earlier in the day.