NEW DELHI: Over 200 people have been killed in a surge of Hindu Moslem rioting in northern and southern India, where mobs defied curfews and attacked trains and the police, reports said.
The worst violence was reported in southern India, where Indian army troops have taken control of the city of Hyderabad after 144 people were stabbed, shot or beaten to death in five days of clashes. More than 350 people were detained in connection with the violence. The violence there and in Aligarh, where 79 people died in sectarian clashes, renewed the challenges that Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar’s minority government faces in battling India’s staggering economic, social and political problems.
He has been in power for just over a month and is sustained in New Delhi by the support of the largest opposition party in Parliament, the Congress Party of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.
Although Shekhar appeared to have temporarily gained by getting fundamentalist Hindus to agree to peaceful protest at the town of Ayodhya to press for temple at the site of a medieval mosque, the fallout of that dispute was seen at the city of Aligarh, where 29 Hindus and Moslems have died in clashes.
A curfew has been ordered in Aligarh. The army has been summoned to maintain law and order, troops were told Sunday to shoot rioters on sight. Government controlled television said 125 people were detained. The local university was closed, and students were asked to vacate rooms.
The worst incident at Aligarh took place Saturday when a mob of more than’500 people attacked a train, pulled out several passengers and killed six, including Hindus.
(NY Times and dispatches)
Article extracted from this publication >> December 14, 1990
