November 18, 2002	Monday	Ramazan 12, 1423

AHMEDABAD, Nov 17: Police on Sunday broke up a rally by Hindu radicals in India’s riot-torn western state of Gujarat after a top hardliner defied a ban on demonstrations before elections.

Praveen Togadia, general secretary of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, was taken into custody with a top aide just after he began a march from a temple in Ahmedabad.

He was released later in the day and promised he would hold more rallies before the Dec 12 polls, in which Hindu nationalists are seeking re-election.

“We will carry on our campaign,” Togadia said. “We have been able to convey our message not only to the people of Gujarat but to all of India.”

Police said they had detained 145 people, including 15 women, in Ahmedabad, most of them Hindu hardliners, to prevent trouble during the planned rally. Most were freed within hours.

The Hindu activists had planned to march to Godhra, the site of a February train massacre that led to months of bloodbath in which 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, died.

“We are taking out this rally to establish the Hindu nation. We will first take over (Gujarat’s capital) Gandhinagar, then New Delhi and then Islamabad,” Togadia vowed in a speech before being detained.

“The answer to Godhra is not secularism, but a Hindu nation. We will not allow Gujarat to become like Kashmir.” Muslim-majority state, which is wracked by a separatist insurgency.

India’s election commission had banned religious processions before the Gujarat polls, fearing they could trigger more violence.

Thousands of troops were deployed across Gujarat to prevent trouble during the VHP showdown, and only minor scuffles occurred.

Authorities had orders to prevent Togadia from entering Godhra.

Togadia slammed the chief of the election commission, James Lyngdoh, for imposing the ban and alleged he acted at the behest of Sonia Gandhi, the chief of Congress Party.

“The police has been able to stop us for the time being because they have to take orders from the election commission for the short period until the elections. But after the elections, they will once again be taking orders from us,” he said.

Congress and international human rights groups have alleged that the state’s Hindu nationalist chief minister, Narendra Modi, and the state police did little when Hindus rampaged against Muslims earlier this year.

The aborted rally was seen as a show of strength to increase Hindu support for Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s BJP to win re-election.—AFP