Police fire on crowds after India train attack

Police in western India used gunfire and tear gas as Hindus attacked Muslim-owned shops and a mosque after an attack on a train…

Police in western India used gunfire and tear gas as Hindus attacked Muslim-owned shops and a mosque after an attack on a train that killed 58 people.

Fourteen children were among the dead in the train fire and police say 30 people have been arrested.

A large crowd of Hindu youths attacked a mosque in the city of Ahmedabad, sparking a running street battle with police and Muslim residents. About 6,000 police have been deployed on the streets of Ahmedabad.

Up to 100 young Hindus pelted the mosque in a Muslim-dominated residential area of the city with stones, bricks and glass bottles. At least three Muslim-owned restaurants in Ahmadabad's central business district were set on fire.

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In three towns in Gujarat state, seven Muslims were stabbed to death and curfews were ordered.

The train was attacked yesterday just outside the town of Godhra, a Muslim-dominated area in the western state of Gujarat, 160 kilometres east of Ahmedabad.

It was carrying Hindu activists who were returning from the town of Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh state, where thousands of Hindus have been gathering in defiance of court orders to build a temple on the ruins of a 16th-century mosque destroyed by Hindu zealots in 1992.

AFP