Around 100 vehicles were torched or attacked with stones in Pune on Monday in what officials said was a pre-planned conspiracy. The violence took place during a peaceful agitation that had been called over the demand for reservations for the Maratha community in Maharashtra..

The Superintendent of Police Pune (rural) told India Today TV that probe suggested that anti-social elements from neighbouring districts had sneaked into the area where a peaceful agitation was organised by villagers at Chakan area.

SP Sandeep Patil said anti-social elements had iron rods, sticks and some kind of fuel which was used to torch the vehicles.

The SP stated that Monday's violence seemed to have been a planned conspiracy. It now appears that the anti-social elements were already presemt at four places in Chakan area whereas the agitation was happening at Talegaon Chowk, the main intersection on Pune-Nashik Highway.

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Organisers of Monday's agitation told India Today TV that they had observed the presence of some unknown youths who were sitting there and they had started instigating other people gathered to behave in a violent manner.

In Monday's violence around 100 vehicles were damaged. Stones were also hurled at the window panes of Chakan police station. Vehicles outside the police station were also burnt and damaged with stones.

A police inspector and five police personnel were injured. One police person Santosh Bhapkar has also sustained skull injury.

SP Sandeep Patil, who took charge of his office on Monday morning, said, "In the beginning the police force was finding it difficult to control the other mob that went on rampaging the vehicles.. But soon contingents from other police stations came and the situation was brought under control but not before the violent agitators caused the largest violence in the last 45 days of the Maratha agitation. State reserve police force were also called and deployed in tense areas.

When asked about a woman protester who is said to have started the violence by pelting stones at Manik Chowk, Patil said that the police too have received such inputs and now they have started detaining people on the basis of eye witness accounts and CCTV recordings.

An FIR is being registered and some of the youths have been detained.

Watch: Maratha reservation agitators set buses on fire in Pune