MEERUT: India, May 22, (Reuter): Police today sealed all approaches to the north Indian city of Meerut where four days of Hindu Moslem clashes have cost nearly 50 lives and charred remains of shops and houses stand testimony to savage fighting.

Rows of bumtout buses line the streets and soldiers in full battle gear patrol curfew bound districts past the shells of buildings from which acrid smoke still rises.

A military force of 1,200 is backing up 4,500 police, and an army commander told Reuters: “We are here at present to assist the civilian authorities. But if the situation gets worse, we will take over”.

Tension was also high in old Delhi where two people were killed in Hindu Moslem riots on Monday. Police re imposed curfew on trouble spots and were rushing in reinforcements.

However, the Western city of Broach where six people have died in rioting was reported calm.

Meerut, the worst hit city, is virtually divided into hostile camps with few people venturing out and tension rising as darkness approaches.

Meerut Police Chief U.K.B. Nair told Reuters 47 people had died since the unrest erupted on Monday and he feared more trouble tonight. Some 480 people have been arrested.

“We cannot handle the situation, and we have asked for paramilitary reinforcements”, he added.

Earlier Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi cancelled a scheduled visit to Meerut but home (interior) Minister Buta Singh flew there from New Delhi and told reporters “The happenings were of such high dimension that the administration was not fully geared to meet it”.

Last night rampaging mobs set fire to shops and houses in the heart of Meerut, a city of one million people about 80 km (50 miles) northeast of New Delhi.

Nearly 40 percent of them are Moslems and the city has a history, of unrest and inters communal violence.

A group of 13 frightened Moslems spoke to Reuters as they huddled inside a mosque near the city center. All said they had lost their shops or homes in the rioting.

“Thousands of Moslems and Hindus fought a pitched battle outside here on Monday”, said Taj Mohammad, a dairy farmer. “The Hindus, and the police, are out to destroy all Moslems”.

Abdul Aziz, another of the refugees, said: “We are already fasting (for the Moslem fast of Ramadan). But when the fast ends, we have nothing left to eat or to feed our children.”

In the street outside, a Hindu bank clerk, R.K. Sharma, told a different story, seeing the violence as the Moslems’ response to a court judgment which permitted Hindus to worship at a shrine claimed by both religions.

“This was all planned by the Moslems to take revenge for Babri Masjid. Of course, our people beat up a few of them, but it was mainly the fault of the Moslems”.

Members of Meerut’s Harijan (Untouchable) Hindu community agreed that Moslem mobs had

attacked them first. “About 500 Moslems attacked our shops and houses”, said R.S.

Maurya, a former member of the Uttar Pradesh State Assembly. “They pelted us with stones and our children were hiding under beds in fear”.

But Mufti Abdul Khaliq, a local leader of the ruling Congress (I) Party, said: “Such killings have never happened before…. People who have been burning our houses and killing us are allowed to go scot free. Who is to blame?”

Like other speakers, Khaliq blamed the outbreak of violence on troublemakers from’ outside Meerut.

Article extracted from this publication >>  May 29, 1987