Two home guards were killed and at least 15 people, including several policemen, were injured on Monday as protesters in Haryana’s Nuh district tried to stop a Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) procession.

Shots were fired, stones pelted and cars set on fire, officials said.

The Union home ministry is despatching 15 companies of central forces to Haryana as violence also erupted in Sohna in the neighbouring Gurgaon district, adjacent to Delhi.

According to police, the VHP’s Brij Mandal Jalabhishek Yatra was stopped by a group of young men near Nuh’s Khedla Mod and stones were pelted at the procession. Cars were then set ablaze.

People in the procession also hurled stones back at the youths who had stopped them, reports said. Later, many took refuge in a nearby temple as police tried to evacuate them to safety.

The yatra was flagged off from Gurgaon’s Civil Lines by BJP district president Gargi Kakkar. A police contingent was deployed with the procession.

According to some claims, the trigger for the clash was an objectionable video posted on social media by a Bajrang Dal activist in Ballabhgarh.

There were also reports that Monu Manesar, a cow vigilante booked earlier for the murder of two Muslim men whose charred bodies were found in Bhiwani district in February, was supposed to join the procession.

The vigilante, however, told PTI that he did not participate on the advice of the VHP, which feared that his presence would create tension.

As news of the clash in Muslim-dominated Nuh spread, protesters in Sohna pelted stones and set ablaze four vehicles and a shop belonging to people from that community. Protesters there blocked a road for hours.

About 2,500 men, women and children at a Shiva temple in Nuh were evacuated by the police, Haryana home minister Anil Vij said. The evacuees apparently included devotees and those who had taken shelter there as the two sides clashed.

Prohibitory orders banning the assembly of people were clamped in Nuh and Gurgaon districts. Mobile Internet services were suspended in Nuh and Faridabad up to Wednesday.

Educational institutes were ordered closed Tuesday in Gurgaon, Faridabad and Palwal districts as a precautionary measure.

Haryana minister Vij said one man was brought dead to a Nuh hospital where 16 others were admitted.

Gurgaon police commissioner Kala Ramachandran said two home guards, attached with her district, were killed in the violence in adjoining Nuh. About 10 police personnel were injured in Nuh violence, the official said.

Another police officer said home guard Neeraj died because of a gunshot wound. The other home guard killed in the violence was identified as Gursevak.

Suspending mobile Internet services in Nuh, the BJP-led Haryana government said there was “intense communal tension” in the area.

Late at night, Nuh authorities said the situation was “under control”. Representatives from both communities held a meeting in which officials and local leaders too took part. Another meeting was slated for Tuesday morning, they said.

Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar appealed for calm in Nuh, invoking the slogan “Haryana Ek Haryanvi Ek” (Haryanvis are one).

An alert has been sounded in Rajasthan’s Bharatpur district following the violence in neighbouring Haryana.

PTI