Tura, Feb 7: Police in North Garo Hills opened several rounds of fire into the air on Saturday night to stop dozens of villagers armed with daggers, lathis, and stones who attacked their outpost in anger after the personnel refused to their demand to hand over a man rescued from their clutches.

The tense situation unfurled after rumours began floating during the evening hours about a gang of dacoits moving around Tapa Darengchi village, less than 12 km from district headquarters Resubelpara, with an intent to commit crime.

Alarmed villagers armed themselves with an assortment of lethal weapons including daggers, knives, sticks and even stones and began patrolling the area.

During their vigil, they came across a drunk man and seeing him in camouflage pants and a dark jacket they presumed him to be one of the members of the dacoity gang.

They began attacking him causing several cuts and wounds on his body. A police team that was out on patrol managed to arrive in the nick of time and save him. They took him away to their anti-dacoity camp at Tapa Darengchi village.

However, the mob soon surrounded the outpost and demanded that police hand the suspect over to their custody. When they were refused the mob agitated and began attacking the station with stones and even tried to push through inside. They uprooted the fencing that served as a barricade of the camp’s boundary and the stone-pelting destroyed some furniture.

As the situation began to deteriorate fast, the police personnel opened fire into the air forcing the villagers to flee in all directions and thereby bringing the attack on the station to a halt.

The detained man who had faced the wrath of the angry mob and remained injured was finally able to be taken to a hospital for medical treatment.