Two people were killed and three injured in police firing after Hindu-Muslim clashes erupted again in India's volatile western state of Gujarat, police said today.
A wave of religious violence in the region earlier this month left 700 people, mainly Muslims, dead. The bloodshed was triggered by the burning alive of 58 Hindu activists in a train as they returned from a disputed religious site on February 27th.
An official at the state's police control room said today: Two Muslims were killed when police fired to disperse a group of Hindus and Muslims. Police claim the group was rioting in Vatwa area of the city.
At Himmatnagar, 70 km southeast of the city, authorities imposed a curfew after some people tried to set fire to a Muslim shrine, police said.
Earlier today, a hardline Hindu group said it would take the ashes of Hindus burnt alive last month around the country for people to pay tribute to them.
The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) said it wanted Muslims to sit with Hindus and pay their respects to the martyrs .
The ideology of the VHP is similar to that of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which leads the federal coalition government.
The BJP has come under intense pressure from opposition lawmakers and some of its own allies to rein in hardline Hindus in the wake of the religious unrest.