MADURAI: Violence broke out in a Madurai hamlet as groups of dalits and non-dalits clashed over offering prayers at a temple. Before the police could arrive at the village and bring the situation under control, four persons suffered injuries and several vehicles were attacked or set afire. An angry mob of non-dalits then marched to the Elumalai police station nearby and vented their ire by throwing stones at the building and setting fire a two-wheeler. Police arrested 20 persons, who unleashed violence using wooden sticks and stones and registered a FIR against members of both groups. The dalits alleged that the rival group came well-prepared for the attack.

Madurai range DIG Anand Kumar Somani and Madurai and Theni SPs Vijayendra S Bidari and A Saravanan led teams to the area to bring the situation under control. “We have registered six cases, under SC/ST act, for rioting and for causing damage to public property against members of both groups. Several persons have been arrested from both groups,” Bidari told TOI.

As police and revenue officials and the media congregated at Uthapuram in Madurai district for a temple festival on Wednesday, anticipating problem in the caste sensitive village, trouble erupted in another temple on Elumalai-Aathankaraipatti road, 2km away, where villagers from several villages, including A Subbulapuram and Athangaraipatti had come to offer prayers. Dalits and non-dalits clashed during a festival at the temple with miscreants setting afire vehicles, including an ADSP’s jeep, a tahsidlar’s car and five two-wheelers. A large number policemen from several districts has been deployed in the area.

On Wednesday, there was disagreement between dalits and non-dalits in Uthapuram that earned notoriety for a wall that had been built to separate colonies of dalits from non-dalits. It was a dispute over offering garlands to a Peepal tree in the local temple premises. There was heavy police presence in the caste-sensitive village, where untouchability had been in practice until a couple of years ago, when the infamous wall was pulled down. But, it was a small temple on Elumalai-Aathankaraipatti road that proved troublesome. A pair of footwear was hurled at a villager during a ritual where devotees threw bananas at each other after offering prayers at the temple.

Eighteen villages in the region together celebrated the Muthalamman temple festival. According to the ritual, earthen Muthalamman idols would be made at Elumalai and one each distributed to 18 villages. After the celebration, in a ritualistic practice, they would break the idols. But the predominantly dalit village of Aathankaraipatti, which oragnised the festival along with A Subbulapuram village, do not break the idol and instead left it to ruin.

While Aathankaraipatti had more than 300 dalit families, A Subbulapuram had 120, a mix of many non-dalit caste groups. There was a tussle a few weeks before the festival with non-dalits refusing to allow dalits in the worship. The district administration intervened to form a peace committee and it was decided that dalits would be included, But, clashes broke out towards the end of the celebrations and the insufficient police presence aggravated the situation, ending in violence.

