Bhubaneswar, June 8: Residents of Haldipadia slum in the city today launched an attack on sub-inspector of Lakshmisagar police station Ashok Hansdah and manhandled inspector-in-charge Rajat Kumar Ray.

Hansdah was assaulted when he went to the slum this evening to rescue a youth, who had been detained by the residents for eloping with a slum girl. Ray was also roughed up by the slum dwellers, a majority of which were women.

A police official said Santosh Jena, a 25-year-old married man, had eloped with one of his distant relatives 10 days ago. One of the slum dwellers alleged that though the local residents had visited the police station to lodge a complaint against Jena, the police refused to receive it. However, the slum dwellers today spotted Jena and brought him to the slum.

"Acting on a tip-off that the slum dwellers have detained the person, we reached the spot. We had strongly suspected that they might harm the person. But, the slum dwellers had a heated argument with us and later started thrashing the police personnel," said a police official.

Wielding sticks and bricks the 30-strong mob, mostly women, attacked the police personnel, as a result of which, they were forced to return from the spot. The attack was so severe that the sub-inspector fell in the nearby drain.

Tension gripped the slum after the slum dwellers had also resisted the entry of police personnel, who rushed to the spot to rescue their men. An eyewitness said the police personnel were chased away to a distance of 30 metres and were beaten up by the mob.

On the other hand, the slum dwellers alleged that the police personnel attacked the women without any provocation. "When we went to the police station, they did not receive our complaint. But when we found Jena, they reached immediately to rescue him. The police personnel assaulted us when we opposed them," said a slum dweller.

Deputy commissioner of police Satyabrata Bhoi said a case would be registered against the slum dwellers for assaulting police personnel. "We have started a manhunt to arrest the attackers," said Bhoi.

In a similar incident in March last year, two police personnel were allegedly roughed up and beaten by henchmen of a builder when the men in khaki had gone to arrest the builder in connection with a cheating case.

The incident had taken place near Canal Road within the Lakshmisagar police station limits when sub-inspector S.S. Parida and assistant sub-inspector Prasanna Nayak of Saheed Nagar police station had gone to arrest the builder, identified as Manoj Mohanty.