AHMADABAD, India: Police shot four people to death Tuesday as officers used guns to disperse mobs and halt looting and arson in two towns in Gujarat state, beset by three weeks of religious violence that has killed 718 people.
Most of the dead have been Muslims, killed by Hindu mobs, in violence that began Feb. 27 when a Muslim crowd burned a train car carrying Hindu activists. The army has been called in to help police restore order, but new incidents of Hindu and Muslim crowds fighting or attacking each other occur almost daily.
Mobs began rioting in two Muslim areas of Bharuch at midday Monday. Police opened fire to disperse them.
"Two persons have been killed and five are injured,'' said Anju Sharma, the collector, or local official, who added that curfew had been imposed in parts of Bharuch, 160 kilometers (100 miles) south of Ahmadabad, the state's largest city.
In the town of Modasa, there was widespread arson and looting and "two persons have been killed in police firing,'' said police superintendent Nitiraj Solanki at the district headquarters in Sabarkantha.
"We are still taking stock of the situation,'' Solanki said, adding that several shops were burned.
Neither official indicated whether the dead were Hindus or Muslims.
There have been increasing incidents of Muslims attacking Hindus or fighting back in mob violence, in disputes that break out over sales transactions or traffic accidents.
On Monday evening, an 18-year-old Hindu student was pulled out of a motorcycle rickshaw as he headed home after taking school exams, delayed by the widespread violence in the state earlier in the month. The attackers hit the boy on the head, and he died of his injuries, police said.
State Home Minister Gordhan Zadaphia said he was sending police reinforcements to Bharuch and Modasa. - AP