AHMEDABAD: A curfew was imposed on several parts of the city as mobs went on a violent rampage through the streets attacking and setting fire to shops. Violence followed a Hindu Nationalist meeting organised to condemn the hijacking and blowing up of an Indian Airliner in Pakistan last week. Effigies of the two hijackers were burned at the meeting. In September, 1969, well over 4,000 people were killed in anti-Muslim riots in Ahmedabad. Baroda, another important town in Gujrat, was also put under curfew last night (Feb 7).

According to a New Delhi report a group of about 25 people squatted near the Pakistan High Commissioner’s House yesterday in continued protest at the hijacking and destruction of an Indian airliner in Lahore. New Delhi’s plush diplomatic area of Chanakyapuri was otherwise quiet, however, after the four days of violent demonstrations in which several hundred police and demonstrators were injured. Meanwhile, the High Commission yesterday denied Indian charges that its staff had caused provocation by stoning demonstrators and firing shots into the air.

It said in a note to the Indian foreign ministry that some members of the staff threw a few stones in self-defence.

Published in Dawn, February 9th, 2021