NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee urged the nation on Thursday to put an end to religious intolerance after what he called the horrific violence earlier this year in which hundreds of Muslims were killed.
More than 1,000 people, mostly minority Muslims, died in a wave of reprisal killings by Hindu mobs in Gujarat in February and March. Several thousand survivors are still living in relief camps, too scared to go home.
"The horrific explosion of communal violence in Gujarat recently is unfortunate," Atal Behari Vajpayee said in an Independence Day speech to the nation.
"There is no place for this in a civilised society," he said. "We must rise above casteism and communalism. We must give up things that divide us."
Vaypayee's Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) heads the central coalition and rules Gujarat.
The violence in that state, which began when a Muslim mob burnt alive 59 Hindus in a train, was the country's worst in a decade.
Muslims account for about 13 percent of India's mainly Hindu population of more than one billion.
Vajpayee, however, made no reference to the Gujarat government's decision to call for state elections ahead of schedule.
Opposition groups and human rights activists accuse the BJP of trying to exploit a deep religious divide in Gujarat created by the communal violence.
The election commission, which last week toured Gujarat to meet officials and survivors of the violence, is expected to announce soon whether it thinks the state is ready to hold elections.
Vajpayee said his administration was committed to protecting minorities across the country.
"We need to maintain peace, amity, national unity and sovereignty at all costs even in the most explosive of situations."
India's new President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam also toured the riot ravaged state this week and urged the administration to help victims of the religious bloodshed.