AHMEDABAD, 29 April — Hundreds of people led by Indian Defense Minister George Fernandes marched for peace yesterday in the riot-torn western state of Gujarat, but nine more people were killed in a fresh outbreak of Hindu-Muslim bloodletting.
Armed police stood guard on the roads and rooftops as Hindus and Muslims sang patriotic songs together in the procession down the streets of Gujarat’s commercial capital Ahmedabad.
Fernandes, who was sent to the state to represent the Hindu extremist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led central government, called on people to rid themselves of “all sorts of misunderstandings and feelings of anger and revenge.”
“We need to forget the past,” he said. “Some perpetuate violence in Gujarat, but people of all communities must come together and try to bring peace to the state at all costs.” Another central envoy, Law Minister Arun Jaitley, said it was “people with no religion who are behind violence in Gujarat.”
“We must unite to defeat such forces. Our peace march is the beginning of a new future without violence,” he said. But violence showed no signs of abating in Gujarat, where more than 900 people, most of them Muslims, have been killed in two months of clashes which Western diplomats and rights groups say may have claimed as many as 3,000 lives.
Three people were killed in Ahmedabad hours before the march when police opened fire to disperse mobs, while three others died late Saturday when rioters burned down huts, a police spokesman said.
In Surendranagar district, 100 km east of Ahmedabad, mobs torched more than 20 shops, houses and wayside stalls after a Hindu was run over and killed by a Muslim driver, police said.
Another man was stabbed to death and one was shot by police in Baroda district, 150 km from Ahmedabad. Another 25 people were injured there when police fired live rounds and lobbed more than 30 tear-gas shells to disperse mobs.
Tension was seen even at the peace march, which was attended by Gujarat’s Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who the opposition accuses of turning a blind eye to attacks on Muslims. Some Muslims held up banners at the march telling Modi, “You should understand the pain of losing loved ones.”
