India's religious violence spreads through villages

AHMADABAD, India -- Mob burnings, shootings and other violence between Hindus and Muslims spread through villages in India's Gujarat state Saturday even as soldiers enforced a fearful peace in larger cities.

The death toll in India's worst religious strife in a decade stood at 415 after police said Hindus stormed the village of Sardarpura and set houses and shops ablaze by lighting fires near cooking gas containers. Twenty-seven Muslims died, police officials said.

In the town of Vadodra, at least seven Muslims were burned to death inside the bakery where they worked. In Himmatnagar, police fired on Hindu and Muslim groups fighting each other with guns and knives, resulting in 11 deaths, police said.

"The violence is spreading from village to village. If nothing is done to stop it, God knows what will happen to thousands and thousands of people," said Asad Madhani, president of the Jamiat-ul Ulema-e-Hind, an association of Muslim clerics.

Multiple peace appeals

Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee appealed for peace and restraint in a TV address Saturday. It was the second appeal in four days from Vajpayee, who rarely makes such appearances.

President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan, India's longtime rival and a Muslim-majority country, called for better protection of India's Muslim minority. "The carnage must be brought to an end," he said in a written statement.

In Ahmadabad, the state's commercial capital and the worst-hit city, Muslims and Hindus warily wandered their neighborhoods to survey the damage. Charred bodies lay in the streets along with burned furniture and vehicles.

Residents in this city of 3.5 million people blamed the violence -- which continued in Ahmadabad's industrial areas, slums and suburbs -- on extremist groups, and said they were stunned by how things had gotten out of hand.

"I can give you a gentleman's promise that Muslims did not want this," said Iqbal G. Shaikh, a Muslim businessman whose middle-class neighborhood of 150 families lost homes and shops, but not lives. "And I tell you in the name of God that Hindus did not want this."

The violence is the worst in India since 1993, when 800 people were killed during Hindu-Muslim riots in Bombay. Outside Gujarat state, the country remained relatively calm.

Soldiers fanned out in the cities of Ahmadabad, Baroda and Rajkot with orders to shoot rioters on sight.

Government officials insisted the situation was under control, even though district police officers told of widespread burnings, stabbings and shootings in outlying towns.

The officers said they had been ordered not to talk to reporters. Independent television news stations, including CNN, were blacked out in the state after Chief Minister Narendra Modi accused them of showing gory and provocative pictures.

At Ahmadabad's Civil Hospital, Hindu and Muslim victims said they were shocked by the explosion of religious anger.

Attacked by his neighbors

Hussain Mullah Baksh, a 74-year-old Muslim, said Hindus pulled him from his motorbike, doused him with gasoline and set him on fire Thursday. He was being treated Saturday for burns over half of his body.

"I was attacked by my Hindu neighbors whom I know, though we were not friends," Baksh said.

Ramji Bhai, a 25-year-old Hindu auto-rickshaw driver, lying on a bed nearby, said a gasoline bomb was thrown at him from the roof of a mosque, burning the lower half of his body. He said he tore off his burning clothes and ran naked to a house for help.

State government officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the death toll in four days of carnage was 415. The state police control room put the toll at 383, but the government has a history of underreporting death tolls in calamities.