Violence broke out in the Kawal area when members of a community returning from a panchayat meeting in Naglabadhod clashed with members of another community.
Rajiv Verma, working as a freelance journalist for a leading television news channel, was reportedly caught in the crossfire at Meenakshi Chauraha.
A photographer, whom the police had hired, was also beaten to death in Sekeda village by
a group of people returning from the meeting, police sources said.
Curfew has now been imposed at the Mandi, Civil Lines and Kotwali police stations in Muzaffarnagar and five companies each of the Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) and Rapid Action Force (RAF) have been deployed in the district.
The state has been put on high alert following the violence.
A compensation of Rs 10 lakh has been announced for the family of the journalist and Rs 5 lakh for the relatives of the others.
The Kawal area has seen communal tension since August 27, when three youths, belonging to the two communities, were murdered following a case of harassment of a local girl. Seventeen people were booked and one person was arrested for the murders.
The police also booked several politicians for making inflammatory speeches in the area. These included three Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leaders - an MP and two MLAs from Muzaffarnagar - and one Bharatiya Janata Party MLA from Meerut.
The police also registered cases against 299 others for promoting enmity on religious grounds after they posted a forged video of the killings of the youth on social networking site Facebook.
