A street-level rivalry boiled over into a frightening daylight clash in Dholpur city on Tuesday, as two groups clashed first with stones and then with gunfire in the Kotla area, which falls under the jurisdiction of the Kotwali police station. The confrontation stretched on for close to half an hour, long enough to send shockwaves through the entire neighbourhood and bring the usual bustle of the local market to a sudden, frightened halt. For residents used to the routine hum of shops and homes in the area, the sound of repeated gunfire in broad daylight was enough to trigger genuine panic across the locality.
An old feud finally boils over
According to people familiar with the area, the Akram side and the Abrar side had been locked in a long-running personal dispute for quite some time. On Tuesday, that simmering rivalry came to a head when the two groups found themselves face to face. What started as a heated exchange of words quickly spiralled into open abuse and shouting. As tempers rose further, both sides began pelting each other with stones, turning the street into a battleground. When the stone pelting alone failed to settle scores, the confrontation escalated dramatically, weapons were pulled out from both sides, and gunfire broke out. People who witnessed the clash said they heard roughly half a dozen rounds being fired during the melee, underlining just how serious the situation had become before it ended.
Panic in the market, families lock themselves in
The moment gunshots began ringing out, chaos gripped the market instantly. People sprinted for cover wherever they could find it, desperate to stay safe. Several families rushed to bolt their doors shut from the inside, while shopkeepers who had been going about their normal business abandoned their counters and pulled down their shutters without a second thought. Eyewitnesses said both groups kept hurling challenges and threats at one another through the length of the clash, which only deepened the sense of fear spreading among nearby residents who had nothing to do with the dispute. In what counts as a rare bit of relief given the intensity of the stone pelting and the gunfire, no injuries or casualties have been reported from the incident so far.
Accused flee before police can reach the spot
Officers from the Kotwali police station rushed to the location as soon as word of the clash reached them, but by the time the police team arrived, every accused person from both sides had already slipped away from the scene. On reaching the spot, police carried out a detailed inspection of the area and questioned people nearby to reconstruct exactly how the confrontation had unfolded. A search operation to trace the accused was launched immediately afterward.
Arrests likely soon, police officer says
Speaking about the case, police officer Krishna Raj Jangid said that the accused involved in the clash are currently being identified. He said raids are being carried out continuously at locations where the accused are believed to be hiding, and that barricades have also been set up at several points across the city in an effort to make sure the accused are arrested at the earliest. According to police, neither of the two sides has filed a formal complaint in connection with the incident so far, which means no case has been registered as of now. Even so, police are actively investigating the entire sequence of events, and once the accused are arrested, legal action will follow against them as per the standard procedure. Since the clash, police monitoring in the area has been stepped up further, with the aim of maintaining law and order and ensuring no similar incident is repeated.
