May 6, 2002	Monday	Safar 22, 1423

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AHMEDABAD, May 5: Two people were killed and more than 30 injured on Sunday in fresh Hindu-Muslim violence in India’s riot-hit western state of Gujarat, after a nearly week-long calm, police said.

One man was stabbed to death in the old quarter of Ahmedabad, and the boy died of wounds sustained from a crude bomb that exploded in a busy marketplace in the afternoon, police said.

Police did not identify the religion of the victims.

“Several areas of the city witnessed clashes between Hindus and Muslims. An indefinite curfew has been imposed in two areas,” a senior police official told Reuters.

On Sunday, the violence in Ahmedabad began after a group of Muslims returned to their homes from a refugee camp, a senior police official said.

“Hindus took objection to the return of Muslims to the area from camps and this led to pelting of stones at each other and burning of shops,” the official said.

Some 100,000 people, mainly Muslims, are sheltered in relief camps in the Gujarat. Many have lost their homes in arson attacks or are too terrified to return for fear of being targeted by their Hindu neighbours, relief workers say.

Rioting groups of Hindus and Muslims also torched nearly 30 scrap metal shops and several houses in eastern Ahmedabad, where Hindus and Muslims live in close proximity.

Additional paramilitary forces have been moved in to prevent fresh violence in the city, police said. A Zee television report said rioters were fighting pitched battles with police and rapid action force, hurling petrol bombs at them. Houses were set on fire.

According to The Hindustan Times newspaper on Sunday, senior police officials in Gujarat are reported to have said that they were instructed to go soft on right Hindu groups,

The newspaper said Indian Police Service (IPS) officers told K.P.S. Gill, the newly-appointed security adviser to the state Chief Minister, that the directive was given to them at a meeting of top officials on the night of train torching.

For the lower ranks of the state police this order was construed as inaction against Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal which led to reports of police remaining a silent spectator as violence continued against Muslims.—Agencies