Two constables received minor injuries,' said Chhindwara District Collector Nikunj Srivastava.

'Our motive was not to suppress people but to reform and educate them that what they have been doing since ages was wrong. And we have succeeded in it in the sense that the use of liquor by the participants was almost negligible and they did not use slings to pelt stones or the injuries would have been on a larger scale,' Srivastava told IANS.

'As against hundreds being injured every year in the past, this time the number of injured has gone down to 48. They include two policemen,' he added.

This is not the first time that the administration has tried to stop the ritual and failed. To contain the number of injured in the festival, the administration introduced rubber balls instead of stones in 2001 and 2002, but participants switched back to stones in 2003.

The Gotmaar festival is celebrated every year on the day after the new moon in Bhadrapad month of the Hindu calendar. During the festival, men from Pandhurna and Sawargaon villages, located on opposite banks of the river Jamna in Chhindwara district, about 400 km from here, hurl stones at one another.