337 people treated owing to independence poll violence in Catalonia

At least 337 people have been injured and treated in Spain's Catalonia region on Sunday as Spanish police charged protesters and fired rubber bullets at voters in front of polling stations, set up for an independence referendum.   

The emergency service said they had attended to 337 people, but none of  hem are seriously wounded. 

Most of the injured were treated for "bruises, dizziness and panic attacks", according to the Health Department of   the Catalan regional government.

Civil guards clear people away from the entrance of a sports center, assigned to be a referendum polling station by the Catalan government in Sant Julia de Ramis, near Girona, Spain, Sunday, Oct. 1, 2017.[Photo: AP]

A total of 11 Spanish police officers were slightly injured on Sunday in clashes with protesters as the banned Catalan   independence referendum gets under way.

"For now in total, 9 police officers and two Civil Guard officers have been injured when they carried out   the order of the judges" to stop the independence poll, Spain's interior ministry said in a tweet.

Spanish Interior Minister Juan Ignacio Zoido said in a statement that law enforcers have "neutralized" about 70 polling   stations, adding that their actions have been "proportionate".

Lashing out at Catalan regional leader Carles Puigdemont for the clash, Zoido said Puigdemont is "solely responsible for what is happening in Catalonia" and "can not pretend to throw his guilt to others". 

Zoido added that Puigdemong should not "blame those who only want to restore security".

Spanish National Police and Civil Guards entered a number of buildings used as polling stations, including the one in northeastern city of Girona, some 100 km north east of Barcelona, where Puigdemont is expected to vote in the banned referendum on Catalonia's independence. 

A woman cries after civil guards dragged people away from the entrance of a sports center, assigned to be a referendum polling station by the Catalan government in Sant Julia de Ramis, near Girona, Spain, Sunday, Oct. 1, 2017.[Photo: AP]

According to the EFE news agency, more than 100 people gathered outside the station to prevent the police from entering. However, the police broke the glass of the door and entered the station to   search for ballot boxes and voting materials. 

The EFE quoted some members who prepared the material for the vote as saying that the ballot boxes for the referendum had been kept overnight at a nearby church. 

It is also reported that the regional leader Puigdemont has cast his ballot at another polling station. 

The referendum has been declared illegal by the Spanish Constitutional Court with police given orders to seize anything used to promote the referendum or allow it to be undertaken. 

Many people had slept overnight in the buildings to allow them to be used to vote, but the Spanish and   local media reported that in some buildings the internet connection was cut to prevent voting, while in others, police forced their way in to confiscate ballot boxes and ballot papers. 

Around 50 riot police forced their the Ramon Lull school in Barcelona, as well as the Jaume Balmes school in the street Pau Claris in the same city, where a police line was formed to stop voters entering   the building.