AHMEDABAD, March 14: A curfew was imposed and federal troops despatched Thursday in a rural area of Gujarat after several thousand Hindu tribesmen attacked and burned Muslim homes in a fresh outbreak of sectarian violence.

Around 2,000 Hindus attacked the Muslim village of Kavant in Vadodara district, some 200 kilometres south of Gujarat’s commercial capital Ahmedabad, on Wednesday afternoon.

“They were armed with bows and arrows and began looting and burning shops and homes,” said police sub-inspector R.S. Solanki, adding that there were no reports of any casualties.

Many Muslim families had already fled Kavant a week ago in the wake of the worst sectarian violence to hit India in nearly a decade that claimed 700 lives across Gujarat.

The unrest, triggered by a February 27 attack on a train carrying Hindu activists, was quelled by the deployment of federal troops, but stray incidents such as the looting in Kavant have continued to fuel Hindu-Muslim tensions.

Federal troops have so far been largely confined to Gujarat’s major cities.—AFP