Riots in India leave 16 dead

At least 16 people were killed overnight as Hindus and Muslims attacked each other with stones, petrol bombs and acid in India’s western state of Gujarat.

Eleven people were died in the riots, and police shot two more in the head as they tried to disperse mobs in several parts of Ahmadabad, the state’s commercial hub.

Officials said at least 923 people have been killed in nine weeks of sectarian riots, but human rights groups and Western diplomats put the figure between 2,000 and 3,000.

Crowds of Hindus and Muslims pelted each other with stones and light bulbs filled with acid in Vejalpur district, where a Hindu camel-cart driver was killed earlier yesterday.

Police fired into the mobs, shooting two Muslims in the head and killing them instantly, said deputy police commissioner SM Katara.

Most of those killed in the riots have been Muslims.

Human rights groups, Muslim organisations and journalists who have witnessed the fighting have accused police of often siding with the Hindus and aiming at Muslims when they fire.

The violence began on February 27 when a Muslim mob burned a train carrying Hindu pilgrims, leading to statewide reprisals by Hindus.

In the last two weeks, most of the fighting has been in Ahmadabad.

Mobs defied a curfew in the Shah Alam neighbourhood, roaming the streets to hurl rocks and home-made petrol bombs into shops and homes, killing two people.

Shops were looted and burned in the Sarkhej district of the city yesterday after a Hindu mob burned to death a Muslim teacher riding his motorcycle to work at a technical college.

As rioting spread to other neighbourhoods, police found two bodies in the Khamasa Gate area of the city.

One person died in an Ahmadabad hospital, succumbing to wounds he suffered in an acid bulb attack on Sunday.

Elsewhere in Gujarat, one person was killed in Sabarkantha district, 145 miles north of Ahmadabad, while another man died in a village near the city of Baroda, 60 miles to the southwest, said MD Solanki, a police superintendent in Sabarkantha.