A few shops were vandalised on Sunday during one-hour relaxation of curfew in the Batala , which witnessed violence over publication of a picture of Jesus Christ in an allegedly objectionable manner, even as authorities termed the situation as tense but under control.
The curfew was relaxed from 6 PM to 7 PM to facilitate people buy essential commodities as a mob vandalised a number of shops and forced shopkeepers to roll down shutters at Tibber village, official sources said.
"The situation is under control," IG (border range) Preet Singh Sahota said, adding as many as 2,000 police personnel have been deployed in the district.
Around 12 people, including a journalist of a Punjabi daily, were rounded up on the charge of violating the curfew order, police said.
Meanwhile, Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal appealed people to maintain peace and harmony. He said the culprits behind the "blasphemous act of showing disrespect to the image of Lord Jesus" had already been arrested and that a Special Security Group was interrogating them.
'The group would also investigate the hidden motive, if any, like fomenting violence and communal hatred in Punjab," Badal said, adding Punjab has a long tradition of maintaining communal harmony and religious coexistence.
"The people of the state are wise enough to foil any nefarious design to destabilise the hard earned peace," he said.
Punjab unit of CPI strongly condemned the incident and asked the state government to take stern action against the culprits behind the act.
Yesterday, members of a certain community took out a protest march through the town during which some of them turned violent and set afire six two-wheelers, damaged three buses, a shopping mall and around 50 shops in different areas.
They were protesting against the publication of a picture of Jesus Christ in a book by a Delhi-based publisher recently which was reproduced in some newspapers in the state.
Protesters of another community also took to the streets yesterday and tried to set afire a church, police said. PTI
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