NEW DELHI/AHMEDABAD, 26 March — At least five rioters were shot dead by police yesterday when right-wing Hindus attacked processions of Shiites in the desert state of Rajasthan, officials here said. Seventy others including 45 policemen were injured in clashes that erupted when a procession was attacked by a stone-pelting mob in Gangapur town, 250 km north of the state’s capital of Jaipur.
State deputy police chief Arun Duggar said police opened fire on the Hindu attackers after they blocked the path of the marchers and went on a rampage in the quiet town. Duggar identified the attackers as activists of at least three Hindu hard-line parties. The official also reported a similar attack on a procession in the state’s Pali district and said at least 14 people were injured in the communal flare-up.
In the western state of Gujarat, the site of the decade’s bloodiest Hindu-Muslim rioting that has left more than 700 people dead since the end of February, curfews and tight security marked the day. The paramilitary forces guarded mosques as troops in battle gear marched through riot-hit areas of the state yesterday in a show of force to prevent fresh violence yesterday.
On Sunday, two people were stabbed to death in Ahmedabad, angry mobs prowled the streets in rural areas in the state’s south and a curfew was reimposed in some areas, police said. Street processions were canceled on the appeal of Muslim leaders.
“There is already communal tension in the state and we do not want to fuel it any further by taking out the processions,” said Gujarat Chand Committee President Shabbir Aalam.
“Instead, many of us will be fasting to mourn the death of the Muslims who were burned alive in the recent riots,” he said. The Press Trust of India meanwhile reported renewed sectarian clashes in the state’s Sabarkantha district yesterday where rioters torched an unspecified number of houses and shops belonging to Muslims.
Police used tear-gas as a mob of around 5,000 Hindus attacked Muslim houses in the district, the news agency said, adding that a security guard at a factory in Surat district was stabbed to death late Sunday.
