24 KILLED AS ARMED PROTESTERS CLASH WITH THE POLICE IN INDIA

[The violence broke out when the police tried to clear about 2,000 people from a public garden in the city of Mathura, about 60 miles south of New Delhi in the state of Uttar Pradesh, where they had been living for more than two years, officials said.]

By Hari Kumar

Fire engulfed buildings in Jawahar Bagh park in Mathura, India, that were used by a sect that fired on the police who 

were trying to evict them. At least 24 people were killed. Credit Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

NEW DELHI — A fierce battle between the police in northern India and armed members of a little-known group has left at least 24 people dead, including two high-ranking police officials, the police said Friday.

The violence broke out when the police tried to clear about 2,000 people from a public garden in the city of Mathura, about 60 miles south of New Delhi in the state of Uttar Pradesh, where they had been living for more than two years, officials said.

In a news conference in Mathura on Friday, S. Javeed Ahmad, the police chief of Uttar Pradesh, said the police surrounded the garden, Jawahar Bagh, which sprawls over more than 200 acres, at about 5 p.m. on Thursday. Then, citing court orders, the police told the occupiers they had to leave. When the protesters refused, the police entered the garden and were attacked.

Protesters “fired on the police party from tree tops,” Mr. Ahmad said. One of the targets of the protesters were small huts they had constructed in the park that were stocked with explosives and gas cylinders that exploded when hit, killing 11 people.

 “Initially, police did not expect this kind of retaliation by them,” said Mr. Ahmad.

The dead included the two senior police officers of Mathura, who were stoned and shot during the attack and died from their wounds in a hospital later on Thursday, the police said.

Television stations broadcast footage on Friday of the garden engulfed in flames, with smoke rising above its trees and the wounded being carried out. The number of protesters killed was not known.

The police recovered six rifles, 47 handguns and 178 rounds of ammunition. Twenty-three officers were wounded. The district magistrate of Mathura, Rajesh Kumar, speaking to a reporter in a video posted on YouTube, said a bullet had grazed his head. He did not appear to be seriously wounded.

The protesters said they were members of a group that venerates Subhas Chandra Bose, an Indian nationalist and anticolonial activist. Unable to swallow India’s support for its British rulers in World War II, Bose made common cause with the Axis powers, Germany and Japan, forming the Indian National Army, which fought alongside the Japanese. He reportedly died in a plane crash in 1945 that has provided fodder for conspiracy theorists ever since.

Not all of the protesters’ ideology is known, but local Hindi news media said that its adherents were calling for higher gasoline subsidies, the use of gold coins as currency and punishment for nonvegetarians. The protesters’ leader, Ram Vriksha Yadav, believed to be in his mid-50s, could not be found after the confrontation.

“They were complete anarchists and not listening to the local administration,” said Pradeep Bhatnagar, the divisional commissioner of Agra, who was asked to investigate the incident by the state government. He confirmed that the protesters cast themselves as adherents of Bose and added that they “did not believe in government institutions.”

Nida Najar contributed reporting.

@ The New York Times