The alleged rape of a 12-year-old girl at Wambe Colony in Bagalkot sparked a protest in front of Navanagar police station here on Saturday.
The relatives of the victim and the residents of the colony gathered in front of Navanagar police station and demanded the police to hand over the perpetrators of the heinous act to them.
The protest soon turned violent with a few miscreants throwing stones on an NWKRTC bus and a private school bus, damaging window panes and windscreens.
The police caned the protesters and brought the situation under control.
According to a complaint lodged with the jurisdictional police, three persons raped the girl when she had gone to relieve herself on Friday night. The girl informed her parents about the incident, who lodged the complaint the next morning.
Acting on the complaint, the police detained Ramanagouda Goudar and Mahadevappa, both residents of Wambe Colony, in connection with the case.
Soon, hundreds of residents gathered in front of Navanagar police station, demanding the police to hand over the duo to them. Efforts to pacify the crowd by DySP S B Girish and CPI Mallikarjun Talasigeri were in vain as the agitators were in no mood to relent.
The agitators grew in numbers by afternoon. They blocked the road in Navanagar, and some of them threw stones on two buses.
The police have detained six persons in the stone-throwing case. Additional police personnel have been deployed at sensitive areas including Wambe Colony and Shed Cross.
