NAVI MUMBAI: The festival of colours ended in a bloodbath on Thursday as three persons were killed, two of them in police firing, and 43 injured at Ghansoli near Navi Mumbai following a riot sparked off by an eve-teasing incident.

The clashes took place between residents of Simplex Colony, a residential township largely comprising Mathadi workers (head-loaders), and the Agri and Koli communities from the Ghansoli gaothan in the Thane-Belapur industrial belt.

On Wednesday midnight, Simplex residents had barricaded their gates to stop villagers from entering the colony after a female resident was harassed by a group from the village.

A group of men from the colony had then rushed to the gaothan around 2 am in the night with sticks and tried to intimidate the villagers by damaging cars and bikes.

 

Tempers rose further when a Mathadi Kamgar Union official called a meeting in the morning and used a public address system to mobilise a crowd.

"When the villagers heard him, they came in large numbers women holding sickles, men armed with rods and petrol bombs," an eyewitness said.

By 9 am, the colony was a scene of a full-blown riot as villagers attacked residents with sickles, swords, stones and even country-made bombs. Police teams were rushed in.

Dyaneshwar Bargude, a bodyguard of Mathadi Kamgar Union secretary Narendra Patil, was stabbed to death in the ensuing violence.