NEW DELHI/AHMEDABAD, 8 May — Fresh violence in the western Indian state of Gujarat yesterday left nine people dead and 10 injured.
The latest unrest came as opposition MPs walked out of Parliament in protest over reports that relief camps housing hundreds of thousands of people, mostly Muslims, displaced by the Gujarat violence could be closed.
A Muslim teacher riding a scooter was set on fire and killed and two other people were stabbed to death in the state’s commercial capital of Ahmedabad, a police spokesman said. The scooterist was attacked by mobs in Sarkhej on the outskirts of the city. The killing sparked off arson attacks in the area and a curfew was immediately imposed in Sarkhej and an adjoining neighborhood.
Another person was killed in police firing in the city’s Vejalpur area. A man was also set on fire by a mob and his body flung into a well in the Muslim-dominated Juapur area on the outskirts of Ahmedabad. The same rampaging mob then torched a truck and some shops.
"Two people died in the police firing aimed at breaking up the mob," a police officer said. Two more deaths were reported by police late yesterday but no other details were available.
The latest killings bring the death toll in the fresh spate of Hindu-Muslim riots since the weekend to 17.
Ten people, including five policemen, were also injured in different incidents of violence across the city.
Army patrols were sent out to quell the unrest while personnel from the State Reserve Police and the Rapid Action Force were called in to assist. The upsurge of violence began Sunday after a Hindu mob attacked a group of Muslims returning from a camp for displaced people. "At least three areas are still under indefinite curfew and soldiers and paramilitary forces are patrolling the streets to make sure the violence does not spread," a police officer said.
Residents of the city’s riot-hit areas said they feared for their life when they ventured out of their homes. People rushed home from work early and traffic in Ahmedabad’s old quarter remained thin.
The communal unrest in Gujarat — the worst to hit India for nearly a decade — was triggered by the torching of a train carrying Hindu activists in the town of Godhra on Feb. 27. The train attack killed 58 people while over 850 people, mostly Muslims, lost their lives in subsequent rioting.
In New Delhi, opposition MPs walked out of Parliament saying they were not satisfied with the government’s response to media reports that the administration in Gujarat was considering closing relief camps there.
Home Minister L.K. Advani triggered the walkout when he said: "There is no information that camps are being closed." Advani also ruled out any possibility of imposing direct "presidential rule" in Gujarat, where the state administration has been widely criticized for failing to curb the anti-Muslim violence that followed the train attack.
Opposition MPs, as well as allies of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s ruling coalition, have been united in their calls for the government to dismiss Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi.
