Late on Thursday, a 28-year-old from the Vanniyar community from Vengampatti died as a result of an alleged assault by a group of Dalit youth in Mallur town panchayat.

The New Indian Express reports that the incident took place in Ambedkar Nagar and five Dalit youth have been taken into custody.

Now, the police have reportedly deployed 400 personnel to prevent any further incidents.

The Mallur police have told media that there was an alleged clash between the Vanniyars and Dalits during the Mariamman temple festival on Wednesday. This temple is located in a village dominated by Vanniyars and some Dalit youth had come from Ambedkar Nagar to attend the festival. They reportedly teased a Vanniyar girl which led to a fight and the police at the temple intervened and sorted it out.

The daily reports that on Thursday night at around 10 pm, a group of about 50 Vanniyars from Vengampatti went to Ambedkar Nagar and threw stones at some houses. Post that, around 100 Dalits got together and hit back. But they managed to catch B Karthick and assaulted with stones and weapons. He is stated to have died on the spot.

Salem Range DIG Nagarajan and SP Amit Kumar Singh immediately went there and then sent Karthick's body to the Salem Government Hospital for a postmortem. The police managed to catch five out of the seven youth who assaulted him.