Deadly riots hit PM Modi’s home turf; army deployed

AHMEDABAD: At least six people have died in the worst violence to hit Narendra Modi’s home state in more than a decade, police said Wednesday, as the Indian prime minister appealed for calm.

Prime Minister Modi called for calm after a curfew was imposed and a unit of the army deployed in the state. “I appeal to the people of Gujarat to maintain peace. Violence will never achieve anything,” Modi said in a statement broadcast on television.
Authorities in western Gujarat state said the army had been deployed to try to restore peace after a mass rally turned violent, with protesters torching cars, buses and police stations.
As many as 100 buses were torched and property damaged in the violence in the cities of Ahmedabad, Surat and Mehsana and the towns of Unjha and Visnagar, senior local officers said.
“They have burned down nine police stations and over three dozen buses,” P.C. Thakur, Gujarat’s top police officer, told Reuters earlier. “We had to impose a curfew to control the clashes.”
The violence appears to have been triggered by the detention late Tuesday of the 22-year-old leader of a mass movement by the Patidar or Patel caste to demand preferential treatment for jobs and university places.
Caste politics are likely to play a role in a forthcoming election in the state of Bihar, whose chief minister belongs to the Patel community and has sympathised with the Gujarat protesters.
Modi’s BJP is targeting gains in Bihar, home to one in 12 Indians, to boost its representation in the upper house of Parliament where it lacks the majority it needs to pass economic reforms. The violence later spread to other parts of the state and another two people were killed when police opened fire on rioters early Wednesday in Banaskantha district.
A sixth protester died in Mehsana district later Wednesday, also in police firing, the district superintendent J. R. Mothalia told AFP by phone.
“I appeal to all brothers and sisters of Gujarat that they should not resort to violence,” Modi said in a statement. “Violence has never done good for anyone. All issues can be resolved peacefully through talks,” said Modi, who served as the state’s chief minister for more than a decade, in a television address delivered in his native Gujarati.
Media reports said it was the first time the army had to be deployed in Gujarat since religious violence in 2002 that left more than 1,000 people dead, most of them Muslims.
The streets of Ahmedabad were deserted on Wednesday with schools, shops and businesses closed.
But some protests continued in Surat, the centre of India’s lucrative diamond trade, where local media said police used tear gas to disperse demonstrators.
Political leaders appeared to have been taken by surprise by the scale of the protest movement, which only began earlier this year but has rapidly gathered pace in recent weeks.
The Patidars or Patels are one of the state’s most affluent communities, but they say they are struggling to compete with less privileged castes for jobs. India sets aside a proportion of government jobs and university places for Dalits, known as “untouchables,” and for so-called “other backward castes” under measures intended to bring victims of the worst discrimination into the mainstream.
“Gujarat has a long history of communal violence going back decades, but this phenomenon is something entirely new,” said Sandeep Bamzai, a veteran political analyst and journalist.
“Every observer is mystified by this 22-year-old boy who is leading the agitation and has acquired a cult status in so little time.” It remains unclear how Hardik Patel, the 22-year-old self-styled leader of the movement, managed to mobilize such huge numbers.
State authorities have already ruled out granting the Patidars’ request.
But their firebrand leader, who was briefly detained on Tuesday but since been released, has vowed to keep up the pressure.