A man rumoured to have been killed in the communal clashes in Uttar Pradesh’s Kasganj district on Republic Day, surfaced on Tuesday to trash reports of his death.

The 24-year-old youth, Rahul Upadhyaya, said his death was falsely reported and he was informed about it by a friend.

Upadhyaya was the second youth who, along with Chandan Gupta, had been reported to have been killed in the violence. The news had gone viral on social media, fuelling anger among the people of the violence-hit district.

Upadhyaya, while slamming reports of death, said that he was not even present in the town, when the violence broke out, and was in his native village, while adding that people should have checked about the veracity of the rumours of his death before going ahead with condolences and condemnation.

Four persons have been arrested for spreading rumours on social media about the Kasganj violence and the toll.

Meanwhile, the situation in Kasganj is fast returning to normalcy with no untoward incident reported in the past 24-hours, said a home department official.

Peace Committees are also doing the rounds of the affected areas. The director general of police (DGP) OP Singh has issued a circular directing SPs and SSPs to step up vigil in communally sensitive areas and ensure police presence and patrolling there. The circular has also urged the police personnel to be proactive in reacting to ‘small flash points’ and ‘settle them promptly’ so that they do not flare up into big incidents.

The police have also been asked to be vigilant about social media and ensure that inflammatory and communally sensitive posts, pictures and videos do not find way to social media sites and are not distributed through mediums like Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp.

Instructions have also been issued to install CCTV cameras at vantage points and in communally sensitive areas.

Earlier, UP Governor described the clashes as “shameful”, and said that this was for the first time in the last 9-10 months that such an incident occurred in the state.

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Under fire over the violence, the UP government went into damage control mode and shunted out Kasganj Superintendent of Police Sunil Kumar Singh to “a less significant post”, according to officials.

Piyush Srivastava was appointed the new Kasganj SP, officials said. Singh was sent to Police Training School, Meerut, in the same rank, they said.

The state authorities also presented a cheque of Rs 20 lakh to family members of Chandan Gupta, who was killed in the violence.

At least three shops, two buses and a car were torched after Gupta was killed in clashes following stone- pelting by a mob on a motorcycle rally taken out to celebrate Republic Day.

Volunteers of organisations like the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), Hindu Mahasabha and ABVP had taken out the rally – ‘Tiranga Yatra’. After passing through the Kotwali area, they were about to pass through a Muslim dominated area when some people objected to its passage.

This resulted in heated exchange of words and eventually escalated to firing in which Gupta lost his life, according to officials.

As many as 118 people have been arrested in connection with the violence following which security forces are maintaining strict vigil.

District authorities in Kasganj, said the situation was returning to normal even as more arrests were being made in connection with the violence.

The state authorities also presented a cheque of Rs 20 lakh to family members of Chandan Gupta, who was killed in the violence.