Bhubaneswar, Feb. 1: A road accident on Saturday afternoon triggered clashes between residents of two villages in Dumduma on the outskirts of the state capital. The violence, which began yesterday evening, left 18 people injured from both sides.

Tension gripped the area after a motorcycle hit a youth from Sarakantara village on Saturday afternoon.

"The incident led to an altercation between the motorcyclist, who belongs to Jadupur, and the victim. People from Sarakantara soon joined in the argument and beat up the motorcyclist," said a resident of Jadupur village.

The motorcyclist returned home and told villagers about the incident. On Sunday evening, angry villagers of Jadupur came back for retaliation.

They roughed up a youth from Sarakantara and ransacked some shops in the area. This resulted in counter-clashes with police rushing to the area to bring the situation under control.

Though police were deployed in the area, their efforts to contain the violence failed with the villagers clashing yet again today.

This morning, the area turned into a battlefield with rival groups attacking each other with stones and bottles. When the mob attacked the police with stones, they retaliated by lobbing tear gas shells. They also resorted to mild lathicharge to disperse the two groups of rioting villagers.

The violence led to the closure of shops in Dumduma and imposition of prohibitory orders. Ten persons have been detained in connection with the violence.

As violence escalated today, senior police officials, including police commissioner Y.B Khurania, rushed to the spot. Later in the evening, director general of police K.B. Singh also visited the area to take stock of the situation.

"We were trying to settle the issue amicably between us, but youths from other neighbouring villages intervened and things turned worse," said a Jadupur villager.

"Adequate police personnel have been deployed to prevent any further violence. We are keeping a close watch on the movement of local residents from both the villages. We have also detained 10 villagers from both the sides," said deputy commissioner of police Satyabrata Bhoi.

In the evening, a peace committee was constituted with representatives from both the villages. A meeting of the committee was on till the time of filing the report.