Reliable reports reaching New Delhi said 40 people have been killed - including six shot by police - in communal violence as Hindu activists took revenge on Muslims, ransacking and setting fire to shops, after Muslims were blamed for a train fire which killed 58 people, mostly Hindu activists, on Wednesday.
Star News TV channel said at least 60 people were killed in Thursday’s mob frenzy.
Twenty-six cities in Gujarat have been put under curfew. Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee has cancelled trip to the CHOGM summit in Australia to deal with the situation. Police said almost 700 people had been arrested across the state.
In the city of Godhra, where the train attack took place, 21 Muslims were among those arrested. The streets there were deserted, with schools and shops closed. The violence erupted after a train carrying Hindu activists back from the disputed holy site of Ayodhya was attacked by a suspected Muslim mob.
The Indian Express newspaper said in its online update that former Congress MP Ehsan Jaffrey and 19 members of his family were killed when some youths set their building on fire on Thursday at Meghaninagar in Ahmedabad. It quoted unnamed official sources for the report.
The gruesome incident occurred in the afternoon when angry youths stormed the victims house and set the building on fire.
With this the death toll in Gujarat violence on Thursday went up to 40 even as fresh reports of a car and a camera of a television team being burnt by a mob at Behrampura poured in.
The streets across Gujarat turned into a battlefield on Thursday as the fanatical Vishwa Hindu Parishad enforced a general closure called to protest the killing of over 50 “Ram sevaks” in the Sabarmati Express attack on Wednesday. Rioters took to the streets, indulging in stabbing, looting and arson.
Earlier in the evening, addressing a crowded press conference, Chief Minister Narendra Modi put the death count at 20. He said curfew was imposed on 26 areas and over 700 arrested in the state including 80 in Godhra, the place of Sabarmati Express carnage. Army has been asked to stand by, Rapid Action Force and the paramilitary Central Industrial Security Force have also been deployed in sensitive areas, he added. “If possible, army may be air-lifted from the border,” Modi added.
Asked about the Godhra incident, Modi said: “It seems to be pre-planned and judicial inquiry has been ordered to find out these elements.” The probe is to be headed by a retired High Court judge, he informed. Minister of State for Home, Gordhanbhai Zadafia claimed that “as far as Ram sevaks were concerned, there was no slogan shouting at Godhra railway station while they were going or returning from Ayodhya”.
The areas where indefinite curfew has been clamped are in Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Lunavada and Bharuch towns. Following large-scale arson in Ahmedabad indefinite curfew was clamped in Kalupur, Dariapur, Rakhial, Karanj, Bapunagar, Naroda, Vatwa and Sherkotda areas at 1pm.
Rioting and arson were reported from 27 places in the city in the morning, even as VHP and Bajrang Dal workers enforced a total bandh. Mobs torched shops on C.G. Road, Satellite area, Behrampura, Shahpur and Vastrapur area. A police vehicle was completely damaged when a mob attacked it near Navrangpura.
Curfew has also been imposed in Rajkot city where mobs set on fire a religious place. Mobs manhandled two press photographers, smashed their equipment and snatched the films. An orphanage was also targeted by mobs who torched shops and roadside stalls.
The minority board office, also known as the WAKF board office in the old Sachivalaya building, a stone throw’s away from the Secretariat was attacked and set on fire in the afternoon. The old Sachivalaya building houses several state government office. The WAKF board office on the ground floor was ransacked, before it was set afire.
Over 2,000 people went on a rampage in the Hatkeshwar area on Thursday morning during a funeral procession of 15 victims of the Sabarmati Express attack. Windscreens of cars and buses were smashed and four houses set on fire in the area.
Authorities have also sealed off Ayodhya, where Hindu activists are threatening to build a temple on the site where hardliners razed a 16th century mosque in 1992.
There are widespread fears that the attack on the train could prompt a repeat of the nationwide communal violence that followed the destruction of the mosque.
The train was set on fire as it passed through the town of Godhra. Several carriages were gutted and some victims were burnt beyond recognition.
Since then, police say they have arrested 21 Muslims in connection with the attack and have detained a further 30 for questioning.
Vajpayee’s Bharatiya Janata Party has alleged that opposition Congress councillors from Godhra were responsible for the attack on the Sabarmati Express in Gujarat.
“Police have arrested two Congress councillors who planned the entire attack,” BJP spokesman V. K. Malhotra said in Delhi. Malhotra said the Congress, instead of demanding action against those responsible for the attack, was demanding a ban on the VHP in a move that was shameful.
“When members of the minority community are attacked, all parties react immediately, whereas this is not so when people belonging to the majority community are attacked,” he said.
Defence Minister Fernandes has demanded an in-depth probe to find out whether Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was behind the attack on Sabarmati Express.
“ISI has in the past tried to create a divide between Hindus and Christians by attacking churches in southern parts of the country. A thorough inquiry into yesterday’s attack has to be carried out,” he said.
Fernandes said when the armed forces were alert along the border, the Pakistani intelligence agency could have thought of creating communal tension within the country. “The entire incident as per reports looks to be well planned. The attackers had knowledge about the people travelling in the train,” he added.
Fernandes voiced confidence that a way out would be found to resolve the Ayodhya issue.
The rightwing Hindu Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh, the umbrella body for the VHP and the BJP was quoted on Thursday as agreeing to mediate between the government and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad to end the ongoing impasse in Ayodhya. This was decided at a 90-minute meeting between RSS leaders and Prime Minister Vajpayee.
“Both sides will make efforts to thrash out a solution. We will speak to VHP leaders. Vajpayee will also speak to them. Our immediate efforts would be to maintain law and order situation across the country,” RSS Joint General Secretary and in-charge of BJP affairs Madan Das Devi told reporters after the meeting.