Hindus respond to Muslim violence

AHMADABAD, India -- Angry Hindus set fire to homes in a Muslim neighborhood Thursday and then kept firefighters away for hours, dragging out one former lawmaker and burning him alive. At least 58 people died in revenge attacks triggered by a Muslim assault on a train. \nPolice appeared outnumbered or unwilling to stop the violence in the western Gujarat state. They stood in bunches, watching as groups of Hindus, wielding iron rods and cans of gasoline or kerosene, roamed Ahmadabad, attacking Muslims in their homes, shops and vehicles. \nThe government promised to send the army to Ahmadabad, the region's main city, to quell the rampage. But there were fears violence would spread Friday, when Hindu nationalists called for a nationwide strike. \nIn Thursday's worst attack, 38 people -- including 12 children -- died when some 2,000 Hindus set fire to six homes in an affluent Muslim neighborhood. \nSome trapped residents made frantic telephone calls to police and firefighters. But police said they arrived two hours later, and firefighters were delayed by more than six hours because of blockades by rioters. \nA former lawmaker, Ehsan Jefri, fired at the rioters when they tried to enter his house, but he was dragged out and burned alive. \nElsewhere in Ahmadabad, rioters pulled a Muslim truck driver out of his vehicle and killed him at a roadblock, police said. Other Hindus made bonfires with goods looted from shops, and 20 men tore down a small mosque. \nJ.S. Bandukwala, a Muslim and human rights activist, said his house was attacked by Hindus who "lobbed burning rags and pelted stones," before his Hindu neighbors took him to safety. \nIn a few instances, police opened fire on rioters, killing two and wounding six in Ahmadabad and two other towns, police said. \nThe violence was in retaliation for an attack Wednesday in Godhra, a town south of Ahmadabad, where Muslims set fire to a train carrying Hindu nationalists, killing 58 people, including 14 children. \nTensions have been growing between Muslims and Hindu nationalists who have been using the train to go back and forth to Ayodhya, in northern India, where the World Hindu Council plans to start building a temple next month on the ruins of a 16th-century mosque. \nThe 1992 destruction of the mosque by Hindus sparked nationwide riots that killed 2,000 people -- and the government has called for calm, fearing bloodshed could spread quickly in this nation of more than 1 billion, where Hindu-Muslim fighting killed nearly a million people after independence in 1947. \nNarendra Modi, chief minister of Gujarat state and a member of the ruling Hindu nationalist party, called the assault on the train an "organized terrorist attack." \nIndian officials often blame longtime rival Pakistan for internal strife. Some police and state officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, suggested that Pakistan's spy agency, or the Islamic militant groups with which it is linked, may have incited Muslims to attack the train. \nThey provided no evidence, and no official has drawn any link between the violence in India and the al Qaeda terror network of Osama bin Laden. \nWednesday's attack came after Hindus on the train refused to pay for food taken from Muslim vendors at the station and shouted slogans -- a common occurrence in recent days that has fueled Muslims' resentment, police said. \nOfficials said 58 people died in Thursday's violence, and at least 150 people were admitted to Ahmadabad hospitals, mostly with stab wounds. Police gave no estimate of how many people were arrested.