Policeman among 12 killed in fresh violence in Gujarat

AHMEDABAD, India, 22 April— Twelve people were killed, including a policeman hacked to death, in a fresh upsurge of violence in India’s western Gujarat state, police said yesterday.

The renewed Hindu-Muslim clashes were expected to increase pressure on the Indian government, facing its biggest crisis since it took office in 1999, over its failure to contain riots in which more than 800 have died.

The weekend violence was the most widespread in more than a month and suggested India’s worst religious bloodshed in a decade had little chance of petering out in the near future.

Seven of the 12 were killed in different areas in the state, including in Ahmedabad, Gujarat’s main city, when police opened fire on clashing Hindu and Muslim mobs, police said.

Two men were killed during clashes, while another was burned alive by rioting mobs in Ahmedabad. A policeman was hacked to death during a clash in the city, they added.

In separate incidents across the state since Saturday night, 56 people were injured as shops and houses were torched and Hindu and Muslim mobs hurled petrol bombs and stones at each other, a state police official said. Curfew had been reimposed in some areas and security forces dispatched to prevent fresh fighting, police said.

Sporadic clashes have been continuing in Gujarat since more than 750 people, mostly Muslims, were killed in a wave of reprisal killings after a mob torched a train carrying Hindu activists, burning 59 people to death in late February.

Ahmedabad’s police commissioner, P.C. Pande, said the violence had been quelled by yesterday evening after large-scale rioting earlier in the day. "There are no concrete reasons for the violence except that rumors trigger the gathering of crowds that indulge in hurling stones and bulbs filled with acid," Pande told reporters.

People in Ahmedabad said they had little hope the violence would end soon. "People without anything to do are creating trouble. And the government does not seem to be interested in controlling the violence," said Raju Bhai Yadav, a taxi driver in Ahmedabad. Raghuveer Patel, a cigarette vendor in the city, blamed the violence on "politics".

The violence has plunged the ruling Hindu fundamentalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) into a deep political crisis as both the opposition and allies within the coalition government it heads question its ability, or will, to control the bloodshed.

The renewed violence is expected to provide fodder to those who have demanded the BJP sack Gujarat’s BJP Chief Minister Narendra Modi, accusing him of turning a blind eye to the killings of Muslims. Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee has stood by Modi and rejected calls for his removal.

The BJP’s critics have paralyzed the national Parliament since it reconvened last week, demanding a vote on a motion of censure over the Gujarat tragedy. Efforts to resolve the deadlock failed Friday as the government refused to agree to a vote and opposition groups were expected to block business when the chambers meet today.