Riot police patrolled a port town in Gujarat on Tuesday a day after two people were killed in Hindu-Muslim clashes that began when a Muslim boy was beaten up for teasing a Hindu girl.
Businesses and schools were shut and authorities enforced a curfew in Veraval where Hindus and Muslims attacked each other with stones and torched dozens of shops and houses.
A Muslim boy was stabbed to death while a Hindu youth died late on Monday in police firing, a government official said. More than a dozen people were also injured in the clashes.
"The town is still tense. We are not relaxing the curfew as it could lead to a flare-up of violence again," a senior police official told Reuters.
Gujarat has suffered sporadic religious clashes since 2002, when India's worst religious riots in nearly a decade killed more than 1,000 people, most of them Muslims.
The riots flared after a suspected Muslim mob set fire to a train and burnt alive 59 Hindus. Non-government groups put the toll in that violence at more than 2,500.
After Monday's clashes, police arrested more than two dozen people on charges of rioting and arson in Veraval, a fishing town of about 165,000 people, 350 km southwest of Ahmedabad (news - web sites).
Authorities have also called a meeting of religious and business leaders in Veraval to appeal for peace.
"We may relax the curfew for a few hours for women and children later in the day depending on the situation," R.K. Pathak, a senior government official, told Reuters.