AHMADABAD, India (AP) -- Rampaging mobs set fire to homes, burning to death five members of a Muslim family in western India, where the worst religious rioting in a decade has killed 815 people over the past five weeks, police said Wednesday.
A Hindu mob burned three houses in Abhasana village, 50 miles south of Ahmadabad, Gujarat state's commercial hub, on Tuesday night. Two men, two women and a child from one family were killed and 42 other Muslims were hospitalized with burns, said Superintendent of Police Vikas Sahay.
Firefighters fought the blazes through the night, and the bodies were recovered Wednesday morning, Sahay said.
In Gujarat's Sabarkantha district, seven houses were set ablaze in the Vadali village Tuesday night. Five people were injured, said police, who did not immediately give the religion of the attackers and victims.
The new violence was reported a day before Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was to visit Gujarat, where the violence began Feb. 27 when a Muslim mob burned a train, killing 60 Hindus.
Hindu mobs launched a wave of revenge killings, arson and looting in across the state, killing hundreds of Muslims. Police firing has killed scores.
Officers at the state's police control room, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the death toll from religious attacks in the state since Feb. 27 stood at 815.
In Ahmadabad, Hindu and Muslim mobs clashed late Tuesday and early Wednesday, and police fired tear gas to disperse stone-throwing groups. Ten people, including three policemen, were injured, the Home Ministry said.
A Hindu temple was burned by Muslims, police said. The rioters also hurled petrol bombs and fired guns police. The clashes ended when soldiers arrived.
Opposition parties and Muslim groups have called the rioting ``state-sponsored'' and demanded the resignation of Chief Minister Narendra Modi, the state's top elected official, because of the government's failure to stop the killings.
Modi is a member of the prime minister's Bharatiya Janata Party and state police are facing accusations that they encouraged the rioters, or did little to stop them.
The violence in Gujarat is the worst in India since 1993, when more than 800 people were killed during Hindu-Muslim riots in Bombay. That violence followed the destruction of a 16th century mosque by Hindu nationalists in the northern town of Ayodhya.
The dispute over the mosque site, where Hindu nationalists want to build a temple, is also at the root of the Gujarat violence, as many of the Hindus burned on the train were returning home from Ayodhya.