At least 6 people have died and several others were injured in the violence that rocked Nuh district of Haryana during a religious procession organised by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad on Monday. Property worth crores have been destroyed as violent mobs went on a rampage, destroying anything and everything that came their way.

Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar stated on Wednesday that 116 people have been arrested and 90 others detained in connection with the violence in Nuh. Clashes and arson soon engulfed neighbouring districts of Gurugram, Palwal and Faridabad as well with reports of large-scale arson and destruction of public and private property.

Also Read: Haryana violence: How judge, 3-year-old daughter narrowly escaped Nuh mob attack

The government claims that the clashes were a result of a “pre-planned conspiracy” to target the yatra, with social media acting as the likely catalyst that fuelled communal hate. The procession where the violence struck was during the Brajmandal Jalabhishek Yatra which the VHP began three years ago with an intent to “revive holy Hindu sites” in the Nuh district where Muslims constitute 79.2 per cent of the population as per the 2011 Census.

As normalcy gradually returns to the violence-hit district, a slew of FIRs, 41 to be precise, filed in relation to the violence reveal the horror that people caught in the midst of the violent clashes went through. One particular incident that caught the eye in the midst of the violence was about the rescue of a group of people who had taken shelter at a temple in Nuh as violence broke out.

Also Read: ‘Refrain from violent actions’: US on communal violence in Haryana

The harrowing details of the incident find a mention in an FIR filed in Nuh based on a complaint by a duty magistrate during the yatra being organised by Hindu groups VHP and the Bajrang Dal. The complaint by Abid Hussain, a sub-divisional engineer, said that 35-40 people who took shelter at a temple were stuck inside with no means to escape the mayhem.

As per Hussain’s complaint, 700-800 people of a community were pelting stones and using illegal weapons against yatris and police administration on Monday. The complaint added that the armed mob was pelting stones and using illegal weapons against the yatris and police administration during the violence.

“It was informed that about 700-800 unknown people were going around in the area,” Hussain stated in his complaint, adding that the mob was also setting private and public vehicles on fire.

As per Hussain’s complaint, around “35-40 people were trapped at the mandir in ward 9” and “kept locked”.

“They were not allowed to leave by 400-500 people. When we reached the temple, they started to attack with sticks, stones and illegal weapons and started to fire with an intention to kill us,” the complaint states.

As per Hussain, it was on his orders that the police used force on the crowd to disperse them so that the people locked inside could be rescued.

“On my orders, police station City Nuh SHO, with the help of his police force, used police force on the furious crowd, after which they ran away, scattering from the area with their weapons so we could free the passengers stuck in the temple…They attacked me as well as the police force with bricks, stones, sticks and illegal weapons,” he said.

The FIR was registered under IPC sections including rioting, attempted murder, wrongful confinement and provisions of the Arms Act, reports The Indian Express.