Ayodhya (Uttar Pradesh), Mar 16 (PTI) A group of seers and traders clashed on Thursday evening following a dispute over construction of shops along the Ram Path here, prompting police to heighten security in the area to thwart any untoward incident.

"Clashes broke out between a group of sadhus (seers) and traders. We have registered a case on the basis of a complaint lodged by a trader," Ayodhya Superintendent of Police (City) Madhuban Singh said.

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In his police complaint, Dharmendra Kumar Gupta said 15 Naga Sadhus and five senior Mahants (priests) of the Hanumangarhi temple entered, assaulted and looted his shop, police said.

With the registration of the case, police personnel have been deployed to prevent the dispute from further escalating, SHO Ayodhya Kotwali police station Manoj Kumar Sharma said.

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Mahant Gauri Shankar Das, who is among the senior Mahants named in the complaint, said that "traders were forcefully and illegally building shops by not following the terms of negotiations they had with us".

"There was an attempt to end the dispute in an mediation done by ayodhya MLa Ved Prakash Gupta. Even after this, the traders were forcefully getting shops constructed by not following the conditions of the negotiations," he said.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)