An overturned car lies in the middle of an empty Jorhat street on Thursday

Jorhat, May 18: A skirmish between youth activists targeting pavement encroachments in Jorhat and traders affected by the campaign spiralled out of control today, leading to a riot and forcing the administration to clamp night curfew in the usually sleepy town.

The burst of arson was allegedly triggered by the traders, who attacked the youth activists and five photo-journalists who were covering the ?Clean Jorhat? campaign by the Asom Jatiyatabadi Yuba Chatra Parishad (AJYCP). By the time curfew was clamped, a mob had ransacked over 100 shops and damaged several vehicles in retaliation.

The night curfew is the first in the state?s unofficial culture capital since the anti-foreigner agitation in the eighties.

Two additional companies of the CRPF and an equal number of state police personnel were deployed in the town and the army kept on standby. Additional director-general of police (law and order) S.B. Kakoty arrived later in the day to monitor the situation.

The rattled district administration instituted a magisterial inquiry and suspended a police officer who was present in the area when the fracas began.

Doctors attending on two of the photo-journalists caught in the melee ? Krishna Gopal Saikia of Dainik Janambhumi and Jipanjit Saikia of NE TV ? described their condition as critical. Both suffered head injuries.

Activists of the AJYCP blamed the civic administration for the turn of events. Putul Dutta, the organisation?s chief, said several requests to prevent encroachment on the pavements of Old Balibat had gone unheeded.

The AJYCP, which took upon itself the responsibility of ?cleaning up the area?, perhaps did not expect the traders who had allegedly encroached on the pavements to put much resistance. As youth activists started destroying items kept by the traders on the pavement, retaliation came swiftly and the photo-journalists were among the first to be targeted.

When news of the fracas spread, hundreds of youths converged on Old Balibat and started ransacking shops all along the street in search of the traders who had allegedly attacked the AJYCP activists and journalists.

Sources said the police knew where the traders were hiding but delayed their arrest, possibly apprehending that the mob would lynch them. Dutta said his organisation would not relent until the ?culprits? were booked.

The Tinsukia uint of the AJYCP has called a 12-hour bandh in protest.