Nearly 400 injured in clash over umpiring

Nearly 400 people were injured in a village in Bangladesh in a series of clashes over controversial umpiring decisions in a cricket match between two rural teams. At least one man is reported to have died while a dozen houses were torched in the scuffle.

Paramilitary Bangladesh Rifles and police fired gun shots and tear gas shells on Thursday to disperse a fighting mob from a village near Brahmanbaria district town, 100 km from Dhaka.

"More than 200 people were admitted to different hospitals with injuries," a police inspector was quoted as saying in a Reuters report. "The victim succumbed to stab injuries while being shifted to Dhaka for higher treatment." The rival villagers used guns, sticks and whatever weapons came to hand in sporadic clashes that began on Tuesday.

Delayed television footage showed hundreds of people carrying sticks and fighting on a newly harvested paddy ground at Sarail.The clashes continued through the day and night before the police and paramilitaries went into action in the village. "The situation is now under control," the inspector continued, "but scores of people were injured and huge properties were damaged."