Two houses belonging to Muslim families and a dargah were torched on Monday in an Uttar Pradesh village following the murder of a local Hindu youth, with police accused of ignoring thecommunal tensions brewing locally since Holi and Ram Navami.

Large police and paramilitary contingents have now been deployed at Palda village, in the Hastinapur area of Meerut, but the situation is said to be tense.

The police said two unidentified men came on a motorcycle and fired at Vishu Kumar, 24, on Sunday evening. He was declared dead at 11pm at the community health centre in nearby Mawana.

Some villagers set fire to two houses around 4am on Monday. Their occupants had already fled. While a police team was trying to calm the mob down, some people set fire to a dargah.

Inspector-general of police (Meeut zone) Nachiketa Jha said a murder case had been registered and village panchayat chief Gajendra Kumar had been arrested with “three members of the other community”.

Meerut senior superintendent of police Rohit Sajwan said that efforts were on to identify the two motorcycle-borne assailants.

The police did not say whether a case of arson and rioting would be registered.

The village had witnessed communal clashes — fisticuffs and stone-throwing — during Holi on March 8 and on March 29, the day before Ram Navami. Villagers said the police had treated the matter lightly, failing to register FIRs, counsel community leaders, or increase security.

Vishu’s father Ram Vir named five motorbike-borne assailants, none of whom are among those arrested or accused in the FIR.

He said his son, who was preparing for a competitive exam, had returned from coaching classes when he was shot at.

“He was sitting on the wall of the village school with Manish Kumar, one of his cousins, when Mohammad Anas, Mohammad Afzal, Mohammad Shahnazim, Mohammad Akram and Mohammad Kaif came on motorcycles and fired at him from behind. Manish told us about it,” he said.

“My son would have been alive had the police been alert, but they didn’t take past incidents of violence seriously.”

A police officer in Lucknow who didn’t want to be identified said: “Vishu was married and had a five-month-old daughter. There were unconfirmed reports that he had attacked Anas during Holi. Since then the village has been divided between the two communities. The village panchayat chief was siding with the Muslims because they constitute a substantial percentage of the population.”

Muslims make up about 35 per cent of the village’s population.