From: sunder@grusin.crhc.uiuc.edu (Srinivas Sunder)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian
Subject: UPI: Savage riots in India push death toll above 800
Date: 11 Dec 1992 18:21:44 GMT
Organization: Center for Reliable and High-Performance Computing, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: grusin.crhc.uiuc.edu


Posted without permission from clari.news.politics:


Note: (complete writethru -- death toll rises to 950, quotes from rao, bjp
 leaders placed in judicial custody, five communal groups banned)

	NEW DELHI, India (UPI) -- Savage communal riots raged for a fourth
consecutive day Thursday following the destruction of an ancient mosque
by Hindu zealots, pushing the death toll to 950 as six Hindu nationalist
leaders appeared at a hearing to be charged with inciting Muslim-Hindu
violence.
	Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao, appealing for ``peace and harmony''
in a nationally televised interview, said the situation across the
country was gradually improving because of the deployment of military
troops to areas where violence was continuing.
	``There are some cities, parts of some cities, where violence still
continues, but we have taken very stern measures, including the
induction of the army, in all those places,'' he said. ``There is a
steady improvement... It is going to be a very difficult task for some
days.''
	The prime minister's remarks came as the Home Ministry carried out
his pledge to ban communal organizations, outlawing the Vishwa Hindu
Parishad (World Hindu Council), two other Hindu extremist organizations
and two Muslim fundamentalist groups. The ministry said the groups
spread communal hatred.
	Rao, in remarks to a TV news magazine circulated on videocassettes,
accused the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party and the Vishwa Hindu
Parishad of pre-planning Sunday's attack on the 16th century Babri
mosque in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh state.
	``I am quite sure it was a result of pre-planning,'' Rao told the
Eyewitness news program. ``It could not have been spontaneous or at the
spur of the moment.''
	The prime minister, in the nationally televised interview, said the
issue of replacing the mosque with a Hindu temple to the diety Lord Rama
was a ``political one and there was nothing religious about it.'' He
warned against communalism, saying: ``Being Indian should be equated
with being secular. This country will fall to pieces if we leave the
path of secularism.''
	The 71-year-old prime minister said L.K. Advani and M.M. Joshi,
leaders of the BJP, the largest opposition party in Parliament, would 
``have to bear responsibility for their actions'' in whipping up
communal passions. He defended their arrest, saying ``leaders
responsible for a particular act have to be legally proceeded against.''
	Advani and Joshi have both used Hindu prejudice against Muslims to
build the electoral base of their party, and Advani's skillful
manipulation of the Ayodhya mosque issue led to the fall of Prime
Minister V.P. Singh's government in 1990.
	Advani, Joshi and four other leaders of Hindu nationalist groups had
a judicial hearing at an airstrip near Ayodhya Thursday and were charged
with intimidation and creating communal disharmony for their actions
leading up to the attack on Babri mosque Sunday as about 200,000 Hindu
devotees gathered for religious dedication services.
	They were ordered held in custody for one week while the case is
being investigated. A lawyer for the defendants charged that it was 
``illegal, unconstitutional and high-handed'' for the government to
arrest the six in connection with the riot that destroyed the mosque.
	Many Hindus believe the mosque was built atop the ruins of a temple
marking the birthplace of Lord Rama, a Hindu diety and the central
figure in the religious epic Ramayana. Hindu nationalist groups have
been agitating for years for the removal of the mosque and the
construction of a temple to Rama.
	The devotees gathered Sunday to mark the start of construction on the
temple on land adjacent to the mosque. Shortly before the service,
thousands of people armed with hammers, chisels and steel bars stormed
past police barricades and demolished the mosque in a five-hour riot.
	The incident touched off four days of Muslim-Hindu riots that the
Press Trust of India news agency estimated has so far killed 820 people.
The violence spread to the predominantly Muslim countries of Bangladesh
and Pakistan, killing dozens of people as mobs attacked Hindu homes and
temples.
	Rioting was reported across the nation again Thursday but appeared to
be subsiding. Clashes in India's largest city, Calcutta, left seven
dead, and a curfew was imposed on the city, the Press Trust said.
Violence also was reported again in Bombay, the country's commercial
center.
	One of the worst incidents of violence occurred over night when 20
people burned to death in an arson attack in the town of Surat in
western Gujarat state, the Press Trust said. A mob also attacked a
passenger train in the same area, seriously stabbing six passengers, the
agency said.
	The mosque destruction again triggered violence outside India. About
300 Indian students in Iran attacked the Indian Embassy in Tehran with
stones and clubs, smashing windows and trying to enter the building, the
official Islamic Republic News Agency said Thursday. The agency said
police stopped the students from entering the embassy.
	In Pakistan, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif pledged that the government
would pay compensation to all Hindus affected by the riots that swept
that country Tuesday. He said the government also would pay to rebuild
the temples destroyed by mobs. Ten Hindus and 30 rioters were killed in
Pakistan Tuesday.
	Despite the latest violence, Rao told journalists ``day by day the
situation is improving,'' with military and paramilitary forces being
deployed to help local police contain the violence.
	Rao, who took over the reins of the Congress (I) Party following the
assassination of Rajiv Gandhi in 1991, has come under heavy fire for
failing to take adequate steps to prevent the razing of the mosque. Two
former prime ministers, Chandra Shekhar and V.P. Singh, have demanded
his resignation, as have several Muslim leaders.
	But Rao, responding to questions about whether he would resign, said
there was ``no question of it at all,'' adding: ``Why should I resign?''
	The prime minister appears to be using the violent outburst as an
attempt to destroy the BJP, whose Hindu chauvinist program is in sharp
contrast to the secularity preached by the Congress (I) Party, which has
governed the country almost continuously since independence in 1947.
	Since the destruction of the mosque, the prime minister has dismissed
the BJP state government for failing to halt the violence, moved against
communal groups and vowed to rebuild the mosque.
	Congress (I) spokesman Vithal Narhar Gadgil told reporters Thursday
the party was considering seeking the electoral commission's ``de-
recognition'' of the BJP as a national party because it was a ``communal
party.''
	Rao told Eyewitness he was sure the attack on the ancient structure
had been planned in advance, but BJP officials were claiming that his
attempt to put party leaders on trial for the incident would be the 
``last nail in the coffin'' of the Congress (I) Party government.





-- 
Srinivas Sunder                                         sunder@crhc.uiuc.edu

If my employer shares these views, I'd be most surprised.
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