AHMEDABAD, 8 May — The last two months have been hectic for Saadat Ali, the gravedigger at the Momin Jamat graveyard in this principal city of Gujarat.

Ali remembers digging two huge graves to bury around 200 charred bodies. And then he lost count.

"Now there is no space for any more bodies. It is full," he says.

And yet, when the scorching sun comes up and the mercury touches nearly 47 degrees Celsius, more bodies pour in. Only this time, they are alive.

The graveyard is on the land belonging to the Kalandari Mosque. Next to it is the Dariakhan Ghummat relief camp, where hundreds of Muslim families, made homeless by sectarian fury that has claimed about over 900 lives over the past two months, have taken shelter.

The primary school building that has been converted into a makeshift camp is not large enough to house the over 1,000 families. Neither is there enough water or toilets to go around. Imamul Iraki, a supervisor at the camp, says when the heat becomes unbearable, the inmates of the jam-packed camp head for the graveyard to lie under trees and savor the breeze.

Things are the same at the Chhaartora graveyard in Gomtipur.

The Shah-e-Alam relief camp has more than 12,000 people. "It is so overcrowded that inmates prefer to go to the graveyard," says Mohsin Quadri, a camp organizer. "They return twice to eat and drink water."

But the women dare not venture out in the graveyard at night. Only the men stay on.

To make things worse, Quadri says the state administration is pressuring the camp organizers to close the camp down or face a drastic cut in supplies.

But the victims sheltering there are not ready to leave. Quadri says they are suffering from acute insecurity and are not prepared to leave even under police protection. Quadri laments he has never seen "this kind of genocide in living memory".

Even police officers admit that Muslims have borne the brunt of police firing.

Of the 170 people killed in police firing in the first month of the sectarian violence, 93 were Muslims. In the second month, 53 of the 70 people shot dead by the police were again Muslims.

Official figures of the dead given out a fortnight ago put the number of Muslims killed in the violence at 552 out of 726. The rest included 58 Hindus who died when a mob torched a train at Godhra town Feb. 27.

The number of Muslims injured in police firing is 226 compared to 138 Hindus although it were Hindu mobs that went on a killing spree, forcing thousands of Muslims to flee for their lives.

But the police say the number of Hindus arrested is more - 17,947 against 3,616 Muslims. But most of those arrested have been released on bail.