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The murder of a youth allegedly by a gang of rustlers in Gurgaon’s Vaaspur village two days ago took an ugly turn on Friday.

Agitated villagers in Dharuhera torched 16 trucks transporting cattle and blocked the Delhi-Jaipur highway the whole day, leading to massive snarls. The villagers also torched a police post, a police vehicle and clashed with personnel. Police said the situation was tense and traffic on the highway had come to standstill.

Besides the trucks, the mob also damaged and torched nearly a dozen Haryana and Rajasthan Roadways buses which were stuck on the blocked highway.

DCP Gurgaon (South) Rahul Sharma said, "The stray cattle caught by the Chandigarh administration were being shifted to Barsana Gaushala in UP. The vehicles had the requisite papers and were accompanied by six employees of Chandigarh Municipal Corporation. There were two ambulances along with the vehicles. They were carrying drafts of Rs 3.9 lakh — Rs 2,000 per animal for all 195 on board — given by the Chandigarh administration to look after the animals. The vehicles had ’on government duty’ stickers pasted on the windshield."

According to police, trouble began when a group of villagers spotted a truck filled with meat on the highway near Maalpur village in Dharuhera. The truck had a flat tyre and the driver had parked it on the side of the road, police said. This agitated the villagers and when they came across the trucks of the Chandigarh administration, they mistook them to be those of cattle smugglers and went on a rampage. They torched the trucks one after another, police said.

"A group of villagers had first stopped these trucks in Kullana village in Jhajjar assuming that the cattle was being taken for slaughter. When they were told that these were on their way to Barsana Gaushala, they let the vehicles pass. But the rumour spread in Pataudi area and the villagers here turned hostile. When the vehicles entered Pataudi area, they were damaged. The SDM of Pataudi Manoj Khatri and ACP Usha Kundu, who were present on the spot, tried to pacify the mob but to no avail. The mob unloaded the animals and set 16 vehicles on fire," DCP Sharma said.

Haryana police has deployed over 1,000 personnel to avert clashes in the area.

"Twenty persons accused of setting the vehicles on fire have been identified and FIRs have been registered against them in Pataudi and Farukhnagar police stations," Sharma said.

Gurgaon’s deputy commissioner Shekhar Vidyarthi and police commissioner Alok Mittal reached the spot and took stock of the situation.