NEW DELHI, Apr 17, 2002 (United Press International via COMTEX) -- Religious violence continues to rock India's western state of Gujarat where at least five people have been killed in the last 24 hours, police said Wednesday.
At least three people were stabbed to death while two were killed when police opened fire to quell rioting Hindu and Muslim mobs that were pelting stones and hurling crude bombs at each other in Ahmedabad city.
The Press Trust of India reported that the violence continues unabated in several sensitive areas of the town that are still under curfew.
Violent mobs set on fire to several shops and homes. Police fired teargas shells before firing on the mob. More than a dozen troops were injured in the brick bats with rioters.
In capital New Delhi, opposition lawmakers stalled the proceeding in the parliament for the third day demanding resignation of Gujarat state's provincial government headed by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party.
Opposition parties are demanding a parliamentary debate on the violence that would require voting. Vajpayee's BJP is not in favor of the debate since some of the ruling coalition parties may not vote in favor of the government.
Media reports, independent observers and eye witnesses have blamed the BJP government in Gujarat state headed by Chief Minister Narender Modi for not controlling the violent Hindu mobs that have lynched more than 900 people, mostly Muslims, in the eight-weeks of religious rioting -- India's worst riots in more than a decade.
Human Rights groups say the toll could be as high as 1,800. The reprisal killings began February 28 when a Muslim mob torched a train killing 58 Hindus.
A protest march was taken out in New Delhi by several parties on Wednesday demanding Modi's ouster. MPs belonging to the Leftist parties and Socialist Party and Congress Party are holding protest sit in to seek Modi's head.
Former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda said that violence in Gujarat was "state-sponsored terrorism." "It's a shame."
"Why is the government running away from a discussion? After all the PM said that he was confident of majority," Gowda asked.
Vajpayee has rejected opposition lawmakers demand to sack Modi and has instead hinted at early provincial polls in Gujarat, which is a Hindu-dominated state. Opposition parties have blasted the government for trying to translate Hindu sentiments into votes.
But he is finding it hard to face a united opposition.
Gowda said, "We (the opposition) may have differences on other issues, but on Gujarat we are one."
Meanwhile, a women's fact-finding panel that toured Ahmedabad and six other riot-ravaged Gujarat districts said the violence in Gujarat was a genocide of Muslims.
The panel said Muslim women were targeted by Hindu mobs and the panel documented numerous instances of mass rape, sexual abuse, torture and humiliation.
"The role of the state in the events of Gujarat since Feb. 28 has violated the Universal Declaration of Human Rights," the panel said at a news conference.
"We have been shaken and numbed by the scale of brutality of the violence that is still continuing in Gujarat," they said in their report.