Guwahati, Mar 30 (IANS): An inquiry has been setup into an incident of police opening fire at a mob that gheraoed a police station in Assam's Karimganj district, official said on Thursday..

The incident took place on Wednesday night at the Badarpur police station premises.

Karimganj Superintendent of Police (SP) Partha Partim Das told IANS: "There were two incidents that got mixed up. The police went to nab an accused Ruhul Amin, but he got engaged in an altercation with the police. It was time for evening namaz and people got angry, triggering chaos."

The SP said that the locals were unhappy with the style of working of the station officer-in-charge, Chandan Goswami for the last few days.

"The incident happened at the time of namaz, which fuelled anger among the locals and caused tension to flare up. They later gheraoed the police station. Police resorted to blank firing to disperse the crowd," Das added.

He further said that Goswami has been placed on an administrative leave following the incident, adding that a departmental inquiry has started against him.