On Sunday, the Mallpati village of Bihar’s Darbhanga district was gripped by communal clashes after Muslims created a ruckus and stopped the last rites of a Hindu villager named Shrikant Paswan.

The incident occurred in the Hariharpur tola of Mallpati village under Kamtaul police station limits on Sunday evening. As per a report by Dainik Bhaskar, members of a ‘particular community’ crossed all the limits of inhuman behaviour towards the dead body of Shrikant Paswan (62). They not only thrashed the dead body but also urinated on it.

Besides, during Paswan’s funeral, they pulled up a transformer to cut the power and then created a ruckus in the darkness. Stones were pelted, and four vehicles, including those of DM and SSP, who reached the spot late at night, were vandalised. In the incident, 12 people, including six police personnel, were injured.

According to the report, the Paswan community said that the land belongs to them, and Hindus have been doing cremations there for ages. On Sunday, Mulsims suddenly came and created a ruckus, claiming that the land belongs to their community.

The Darbhanga police said on Monday that clashes broke out during the funeral of Shrikant Paswan on Sunday evening. The police said that the clash happened between members of the two communities, adding that eight people have been arrested and that the situation has since returned to normal. “There was an incident of conflict between the two communities over the accusation of preventing the cremation of a dead body, which led to the vandalisation of one another’s houses by the two sides,” it further said.