Police chase away a mob at Musallapur in Patna on Thursday. Picture by Ranjeet Kumar Dey

Sporadic violence in different parts of the city on Thursday punched a hole in the police claim that they had arranged a three-tier security for the civic polls.

Though no casualty or serious injury was reported, clashes disturbed the election process. A number of cases of poll-related frauds were also reported.

The Patna City area was the most affected with criminals allegedly firing at a contestant. The incident occurred around 1pm when the sitting councillor of ward number 60, Balaram Choudhary, was on his way to Guru Gobind Singh Nursing Quarters to cast his vote. No one was injured but voting was interrupted by 45 minutes.

The police had to resort to lathicharge at five wards — 4,5,6,7,8 and 68 — against voters who staged protests against alleged poor infrastructure at polling booths and coercion by associates of candidates.

Deputy superintendent of police (town) Ramakant Prasad reached the Musallapur area under the jurisdiction of Kankerbagh police station to control the ruckus.

Minor disturbances were also reported from booths at Gandhi Maidan, Chhajjubagh and St Xavier’s School. Two persons were arrested from the institution.

Dabloo Kumar, the husband of a candidate, was arrested from the Khajekala area for allegedly possessing firearms. Two persons, who were allegedly influencing voters by distributing money, were arrested from ward number 8.

A senior police officer said: “There were no major disruptions to the polling process.”