UP: Clash between migrants,villagers leave range cops on toes

PRAYAGRAJ: The conflicts developing within families and villages after return of migrants to their native places has left the men in a khaki in a piquant situation in Prayagraj, Pratapgarh, Kaushambi and Fatehpur districts.
Around two dozen cases of clashes have been reported in Prayagraj range where migrants, after returning from metros like Mumbai, Hyderabad, Delhi and NCR, clashed with family members or villagers.The highest number of 15 incidents of clashes were reported in the neighbouring Pratapgarh district where one person died and left more than a dozen injured in separate cases.
Additional SP (Pratapgarh) Surendra Dwivedi said that were over a dozen incidents where migrants had clashed either within family members or with other people of the same villages over different issues. He said that majority of the migrants were drivers by profession who had been driving their own taxis or autos for the past one decade.
Once they returned to their native village during lockdown, they developed conflicts within their own family over domestic as well as property issues.The verbal dispute sometimes turns violent and leave family members injured. The migrants are also involved in scuffles with people of the same village after they called migrants ‘corona carriers’.
In a recent incident reported in Teunga village under Kotwali police station of Pratapgarh district, a 32-year old migrant was allegedly killed by a group of nine villagers after they had clashed over petty dispute. Though police claimed to have solved the case with the arrest of five persons but the incident sparked off tension in the village.
Other cases of clashes were reported in Raniganj, Antu, Mandhata, Kanhi, Kohandaur and Nawabganj police stations.
IG, Prayagraj range, K P Singh said “Instructions have been issued to all four SPs of the range to take corrective measures and each police station of the range has been asked to maintain the data and details of the migrants returning to their native places during the lockdown.
He also asked police officials to maintain dispute register at all police stations of the range and act promptly so that a dispute does not turn into a fatal incident. Cops have also been asked to intensify patrolling in identified villages where more migrants had returned as compared to other areas. Police have also been asked to check the cases of “groupism” in villages.