A ‘shobha yatra’, a celebratory procession taken out by the Dalit community to mark B.R. Ambedkar's birth anniversary, was fired upon and attacked by Jats in the Gesupur Shumali village of Meerut on Saturday. During the procession, over a dozen rounds of bullets were fired and the Dalit community was attacked with stones. The ‘shobha yatra’ had to be stopped midway due to stone pelting and firing on the procession. Heavy police was deployed to restore calm in the area, which has a history of Jat-Dalit clashes. Superintendent of Police Ajay Sahdev visited the area along with other police personnel. This comes a day after a statue of B.R. Ambedkar was vandalised and blackened by unknown people, which angered Dalits and led to tension in the area. Members of the Dalit community approached the police and filed a complaint against the dominant Jat community. After this incident, which occurred on Friday, an angry Dalit youth wrote an allegedly abusive post towards the Jat community, which heightened tension in the village further.