A mosque and several shops were vandalised in North Tripura district’s Panisagar sub-division during a Vishwa Hindu Parishad rally on Tuesday, The Indian Express reported.

Panisagar Sub-Divisional Police Officer Soubhik Dey said that about 3,500 people had taken part in the rally, which was held to protest the communal violence in Bangladesh that broke out earlier this month.

“A section of VHP activists at the rally ransacked a mosque in the Chamtilla area,” Dey said. “Later, three houses and three shops were ransacked and two shops set on fire in the Rowa Bazar area, around 800 yards away from the first incident.”

The police said that the ransacked shops and houses belonged to members of the minority community. A case has been filed based on a complaint by one of them, an official said.

Narayan Das, a Bajrang Dal leader who was a part of the rally, claimed to the newspaper that some youngsters in front of the mosque abused them and that they were armed with swords and other weapons.

Last week, the state unit of the Jamiat Ulama (Hind) had alleged that mosques and multiple localities dominated by Muslims had been attacked. Subsequently, the Tripura Police said that they were providing security more than 150 mosques in the state.

On October 18, more than 15 people, including three police personnel, had sustained injuries when activists of Hindutva organisations, Vishva Hindu Parishad and Hindu Jagran Manch, had clashed with police during a rally in Gomati district against the communal violence in Bangladesh.