Mumbai: Curfew has been imposed at a village in north Maharashtra's Jalgaon district following clashes over a trivial dispute involving the driver of a minister's car and a group of locals, officials said on Wednesday morning.
Seven persons have been arrested so far as several shops were set on fire and public property was damaged during the violence at Palthi village, a senior police official said. There was a heated exchange between a group of locals and the driver of state minister Gulabrao Patil's car in the Kasaiwada area of the village late Tuesday night when the driver honked and asked them to give way, he said.
Patil, a Shiv Sena leader and the minister for water supply and sanitation was not present, but a member of his family was riding in the car. While the altercation ended at the spot, some persons from the locality later went to a village square and protested, the official said. Another group then arrived there, leading to clashes till early in the morning. Several shops in the village were burnt, the official said.
Additional police personnel, State Reserve Police Force and Riot Control Police teams alongside fire brigade vehicles were deployed in the village, he said, adding that the situation was now under control.
