Hyderabad, May 13: Police shot dead six Telugu Desam activists in a poll-related flare-up today, sparking a riot in which hundreds of political workers stoned to death a policeman and burnt cars and trucks.

Desam activists went berserk when the police in Penukonda town, 410 km southwest of Hyderabad, barred them from entering the revenue divisional office where Desam candidate P. Sunitha was slated to file her bypoll nomination.

Fuming, the mob retaliated by hurling stones and Pepsi bottles at the police, even beating up some of them, and ransacking nearby shops. The policemen, in turn, opened fire on them, killing six activists.

Assistant police inspector Kunalappa died in the violence. At least 24 policemen were wounded and about a dozen civilians hurt.

“We staged a lathicharge and burst teargas shells to quell the mob, which even threw country bombs at us,” Penukonda deputy superintendent of police Vijay Kumar said.

The mob also turned on trucks, cars and jeeps parked outside the government office, damaging whatever fell in its way. The police said the Desam had misled them into thinking only a few supporters would stream in to greet Sunitha when she came to file her papers.

But there were almost 25,000 party workers at the office when the procession of Desam candidates and leaders were midway between Venkatapuram and Penukonda, police superintendent K. Praveen Kumar said.

DSP Kumar said the activists had come armed with bottles, bombs, stones and iron rods. “They refused to listen to our pleas to keep the peace and gate-crashed into the revenue office chambers even before the candidate and senior Desam leaders landed,” he said.

Sunitha finally filed her nomination at 1.10 pm, accompanied by former home minister Devender Gowd and others, he said.

Chief minister Y. Rajasekhar Reddy said a magisterial inquiry has been ordered into the firing. But he ruled out a judicial probe.

The Desam has accused Reddy’s government of “terrorising people on the eve of the bypoll” and “using weapons to silence the Opposition”.

Condoling the deaths of his party workers, Desam chief Chandrababu Naidu said nearly 48 political activists, most of them from the Desam, had been killed in the last 12 months. “The Congress wants to convert Andhra Pradesh into a graveyard,” he alleged.

Naidu said Desam MPs had called on chief election commissioner T.S. Krishnamurthy in Delhi and apprised him of the incident. The bypoll in Penukonda, necessitated by the murder of Desam legislator Paritala Ravindra in January, is on June 2.

“It is not the TDP but the Congress which is igniting factional violence in the district. The life convict, Suryanarayana Reddy, who made an attempt on Paritala Ravindra in 1997, is camping at Anantpur jail provoking his supporters against the TDP,” he said.

Reddy said home minister K. Jana Reddy and director-general of police Swaranjit Singh had left for Anantpur. He has decided not to campaign for the Congress candidate from Penukonda, Sriramulu, to avoid stoking further trouble.