Bhopal, July 3: Heeralal Soni supported the Sangh parivar’s stand on the Amarnath land controversy, so he eagerly closed his jewellery shop when they called a nation-wide bandh today.

Three hours into the bandh, the 28-year-old set himself on fire in humiliation after 30-odd Bajrang Dal activists and local policemen thrashed him and his family, including the women, because the shutters were only half down.

Heeralal, now fighting for his life, had repeatedly explained that the shutters were partly open because the shop served as entrance to his home.

“The bandh supporters refused to listen to us,” his younger brother Narendra said from the family’s home in Ramnagar, Satna, 500km east of Bhopal.

“They thrashed my brother, mother, niece and other members of the family without pity. I think he took the extreme step out of fear and humiliation.”

Doctors at Satna’s Birla hospital said Heeralal had suffered 85 per cent burns and his chances of survival were slim.

The Sonis, who run a modest business in gold and silver jewellery, are devout Hindus and Heeralal had been deeply agitated at the Jammu and Kashmir government’s withdrawal of the land allotted to the Amarnath shrine board, Narendra and neighbours said.

The incident came on a day the Supreme Court rapped state governments for their tendency to look the other way when bandh supporters harass people and “hold the country to ransom”. ( )

The court, referring to the recent blockade of the highway to Sikkim by pro-Gorkhaland agitators, asked the Bengal government to make sure the road stayed open if the hills bandh resumed as expected on July 5.

“You (states) all rest and do nothing…. They (citizens) are thrown at the mercy of those with muscle power,” the bench said, adding that lakhs suffer during “illegal, unlawful agitations”.

In Indore, police firing killed three persons today after violence broke out when some Muslim shopkeepers resisted efforts by the BJP-Vishwa Hindu Parishad-Bajrang Dal to enforce the bandh.

Curfew was clamped in four areas and four alleged Bajrang Dal activists were detained for throwing stones at a Reliance Fresh outlet.

On Bhopal’s deserted streets, the police stood and watched as bandh supporters targeted minority shop owners and auto-rickshaw drivers.

Stones pelted down from rooftops of minority homes as BJP, VHP and Shiv Sena workers tried to force shops shut near the old Bhopal bus stand. The situation soon turned chaotic and the Rapid Action Force was deployed.

Sectarian clashes took place in several other parts of old Bhopal, as well as in Jabalpur, Gwalior and Dhar.