Silchar, Nov. 2: The administration and the police brass in Hailakandi have blamed policemen deployed in Aynakhal village for security breach leading to escalation in tension yesterday.

Saddam Hossain Laskar, 16, was injured when the CRPF fired in self-defence on an unruly crowd that assembled to protest against minister for excise and border areas Goutam Roy near a market in Hailakandi.

According to them, the policemen by allowing former Assam minister Shahidul Alam Chuodhury and other protesters break a cordon had added fuel to the fire.

The AGP leader was leading a column of protesters violating prohibitory orders under Section 144 CrPC to reach a school ground in Aynakhal near a tea estate to address the rally called against Roy who they had dubbed an authoritarian person.

Today, Hailakandi deputy commissioner T.C. Goswami said over phone that “such a laxity in the security steps came handy” for a gang to go berserk and throw stones at a CRPF picket barricading the road. Goswami, however, expressed satisfaction with the way the jawans of Assam police armed battalion stopped two leaders of the ruling Congress at a barricade at Dhaleswar village, preventing worsening of the situation.

Karimganj zila parishad chairman Montaj Ali and Siddeque Ahmed, the associate member of the Congress in the Assembly, have joined hands with AGP leaders to take on Roy.

A 12-hour bandh called by the Barak Yuba Parishad and the Social Welfare Society of Karimganj — two anti-Goutam Roy organisations — against CRPF firing that injured Laskar, passed off peacefully. The bandh began at 5 this morning.

Shops, markets and commercial establishments were closed. Offices and educational institutes remained closed in Hailakandi and Karimganj because of Guru Nanak’s birth anniversary.

Police pickets were set up in the two districts where troops patrolled streets in the vulnerable areas.

Roy who is in Calcutta said yesterday’s firing was “unfortunate”.

The incident was a conspiracy to disturb communal harmony in the two minority-dominated districts, the minister alleged.