The army was deployed in western India's Gujarat state yesterday where 80 people, mostly Muslims, were killed in retaliation for burning alive Hindu activists aboard a train.
A Hindu mob burned 38 Muslims, including a former MP, in their homes in Ahemdabad, the state's commercial capital, as their relatives frantically called the police and fire departments which took hours to arrive, officials said. Twenty people were killed in rioting earlier in the day as mobs went on the rampage, destroying Muslim properties and businesses and attacking mosques.
Gujarat's Chief Minister, Mr Narendra Modi, said the army will help local authorities patrol Ahmadabad and may be deployed in 26 other towns under curfew. More than 1,000 paramilitary personnel have also been airlifted to Ahemdabad to assist the 6,000-strong city police force.
Security has been tightened across the country as the Prime Minister, Mr Atal Behrai Vajpayee, fearful of communal rioting, appealed for restraint. Hindu's form more than 80 per cent of India's 1 billion people and Muslims about 13 per cent.
Mr Vajpayee, who has cancelled a visit to the Commonwealth meeting in Brisbane, met Hindu and Muslim leaders late into the night to try to defuse sectarian tension. Senior Hindu leaders, however, urged him to follow the example of President Bush and declare war on Muslim Jihadis (Koranic warriors) responsible for massacring the Hindus on Wednesday.
Watched by a helpless police force and undeterred by the curfew yesterday, the Hindu rioters rampaged through Ahemdabad chanting "Hail Ram" in honour of one of their gods and burning hotels, petrol pumps, cars, restaurants and shops.
They made a bonfire of looted goods on the city's main streets and bands of young men, armed with clubs and iron rods halted all vehicles, demanding to know if Hindus or Muslims were inside. Muslims were off-loaded; Hindus were allowed to proceed.
"There is a fire inside us," a Hindu housewife said. "There is a volcano of anger inside us [over the train killings]."
"It was a bad day. I felt as helpless as on the day of the earthquake," Ahemdabad's police commissioner Mr P.C. Pande said, referring to last year's earthquake which devastated Gujarat state killing 20,000 people. He conceded the police were sympathetic to the mobs as they came from the same "social milieu" and warned that the situation remained tense.
The attacks were in revenge for the gruesome massacre of 58 Hindus at Godhra, a Muslim-dominated town region, 100 miles east of Ahmedabad.
