From: imran@panix.com (Imran Anwar)
Subject: A Recent News Story of INterest to readers
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 20:45:07 GMT
Organization: IMRAN: Information & Media Resources, Affiliations, Networks


Date: Mon, Jan 11, 1993
Leading citizens demand Army rule in violence-battered Bombay

   BOMBAY, India  -- Army troops, ordered to stamp out a resurgence of 
sectarian rioting, killed several rioters in India's business capital Monday as
fires raged in much of the city.
   Authorities reported 43 more fatalities in Bombay and the city of Ahmedabad,
in nearby Gujarat state, raising the weeklong toll to at least 244.
   A group of eminent Bombay citizens demanded that the federal government 
invoke special powers under the Indian Constitution, declare a partial 
emergency and hand the city to the Army.
   "The situation is totally out of hand in Bombay. Goons and criminals, 
mobsters and beasts in the form of men, have taken over the city," said the 
group, which included top industralists, elder statesmen and movie idols.
   "Bombay has witnessed scenes of violence and lawlessness to which there has 
been no parallel during the 300-year history of the city," they said in a joint
press statement.
   The latest outbreak of bloodletting followed a three-week lull. State 
officials said at least 483 people have died in sectarian rioting and arson 
since December in Bombay and Ahmedabad, western India's two main cities.
   Bombay is India's Hollywood and largest city. Ahmedabad, 310 miles north of 
Bombay, is the center of the country's large textile industry.
   Despite curfew orders, mobs armed with gasoline bombs, rocks and bamboo 
staves continued to fight pitched battles with police in Bombay and Ahmedabad, 
setting ablaze stores, homes and vehicles, city officials said.
   With fires raging in 25 Bombay districts, a pall of black smoke hung over 
the Arabian Sea port city.
   Thousands of additional Army and paramilitary troops were airlifted to 
Bombay Monday to contain the spreading violence.
   The Indian home ministry announced in New Delhi it also was rushing 1,200 
commandos of the newly-established Rapid Action Force to the city.
   The Army was deployed in large numbers in Bombay and Ahmedabad last weekend 
after riot police and paramilitary troops failed to quell widespread violence.
   "Army troops have been ordered to take ruthless action against rioters and 
arsonists," said Indian Defense Minister Sharad Pawar, who was rushed to Bombay
last weekend by Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao.
   The latest resurgence of communal violence, which has left 183 people dead 
in Bombay, began with Muslim rioting in the city's south-central districts. It 
spread from the shantytowns and middle-class neighborhoods to downtown and 
fashionable beachside districts over the weekend.
   "The city has been taken over by criminal gangs," said a police officer, who
asked not to be named. "This is no longer Hindu-Muslim fighting."
   Chief Minister Sudhakarrao Naik of Maharashtra state, of which Bombay is the
capital, said: 

"It is now Hindus killing Hindus."

   State and city officials expressed alarm that sectarian fighting had erupted
among the **Hindu** majority, with militant Marathi-speaking natives attacking 
settlers from southern India. Police blamed the Shiv Sena, a radical 
Bombay-based political group, for the attacks on outside Hindu settlers.

   India's autonomous Election Commission, meanwhile, indefinitely postponed 
by-elections to three national Parliament and nine state legislature vacancies 
spread across the country because of a federal government request.
   The commission said federal authorities believed the current communal 
disturbances and unrest in India made it difficult to hold peaceful and fair 
balloting. The by-elections were scheduled for next month.
   Voicing concern over attacks on Tamil-speaking Hindus, Tamil Nadu State 
Chief Minister Jayalalitha appealed to Naik to protect Bombay's small Tamil 
community.
   "A large number of Tamils have fled Bombay in panic and anguish, leaving 
their properties and other belongings behind," Jayalalitha said.
   India's Central Railways said it was adding extra cars to trains departing 
from Bombay to meet the heavy rush of citizens fleeing the riot-scarred city.
   "Mob frenzy has reached unprecedented levels, and Army troops and police are
finding it difficult to control the situation," said C. Subramaniam, 83, who 
resigned as Maharashtra governor last Thursday after criticizing Rao's handling
of the violent clashes.
   
Army troops fired on rioters in three Bombay districts. The police control room
said several people were killed in the shootings but gave no precise death 
toll.
   In Ahmedabad, three people were burned to death Sunday when their house was 
set ablaze by a mob in the Muslim-majority old section of the city, where much 
of the violence remained concentrated, the Gujarat government said.
   At least four more people were reported fatally knifed in street fights in 
Ahmedabad, Gujarat's biggest city.

   Authorities said more than 1,000 people have been wounded and property worth
millions of dollars wrecked in the latest round of Bombay and Ahmedabad 
rioting.

   In recent years, India has been wracked by growing sectarian and ethnic 
unrest. Several parts of the country remain torn by separatist insurgencies or 
greater autonomy movements.

   Thousands of people have died in such unrest in the past year alone.

   Dozens of Indian cities were battered by a wave of sectarian violence after 
Hindu radicals destroyed a mosque on Dec. 6 in Ayodhya, northern India. More 
than 1,100 died in the December violence, with Bombay accounting for the 
highest number of fatalities.
   The dispute over the Ayodhya holy site -- which Hindus believe is the 
birthplace of one of their deities -- continues to charge sectarian passions in
India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
   The demolished mosque had idols of Hindu deities inside since 1949 and was 
open only to Hindu devotees under court orders.
   Last Friday, the Indian government asked the Supreme Court to arbitrate on 
Hindu claims that the mosque was built by a 16th-century Mogul invader on the 
ruins of a temple he destroyed.
   The action was part of a government peace package to help resolve the 
bitter, 450-year dispute over the holy locale. Hindu and Muslim groups, 
however, have rejected the settlement plan.
   A Muslim fundamentalist group, meanwhile, appealed to the country's 120 
million Muslims to boycott India's Jan. 26 Republic Day celebrations to protest
the settlement package.

Newsgroups: soc.culture.pakistan