Indian troops head off Gujarat violence

Vajpayee appealed for unity after the temple attack

A nationwide strike in India in protest at the attack on a Hindu temple in Gujarat state has passed off largely peacefully.

As the strike got under way, there were some isolated incidents of violence, including two stabbings.

The streets of Ahmedabad, Gujarat's commercial capital, were largely deserted as army reinforcements were deployed in a bid to pre-empt new religious violence.

Defence Minister George Fernandes arrived in the city to meet local commanders before visiting the site of the killings in the official state capital, Gandhinagar.

If they had brought in the army like this last time there would not have been all that bloodshed. They could have saved so many lives

Salim Khan
Ahmedabad trader

Hundreds of Muslims in Gujarat have been taking temporary refuge in camps or in Muslim-majority areas since officials announced that the temple attackers were Islamic radicals.

On Wednesday, Indian commando troops carried out an attack, shooting dead the two young men who, a few hours earlier, had killed 27 people, including four children.

One commando died in the raid.

Foreigners

On Thursday, India's junior home minister, ID Swamy said the two gunmen who carried out the attack were foreigners.

He also said they could be activists of Lashkar-e-Toiba or Jaish-e-Mohammed which have been accused of using fake names recently.

Mr Swami made comparisons between the attack on the temple and those on the Indian parliament, the state assembly in Srinagar and a military camp in Jammu.

The state was hit last February by India's worst Hindu-Muslim bloodshed for a decade, when more than 1,000 people died in riots sparked by an attack on a train carrying Hindus.

The national government has sent in an extra 3,000 troops to maintain order in the state.

Bad memories

The stabbings took place in the city of Surat in the south of the state and both the victims are believed to be Muslim.

Thursday's strike was called by hardline Hindu nationalist groups, but had also been supported by about a dozen Muslim groups who condemned the carnage at the temple.

Troops have been deployed to Gujarat's main towns

Sporadic incidents of violence have been reported in Bombay, India's financial capital.

Most shops and markets were closed for the day but trading took place as normal on the Bombay stock exchange.

In the southern state of Karnataka, the authorities said the strike was felt in Mysore, Mangalore, Hubli, Belgaum and Davangere.

The police said groups of BJP supporters, shouting anti-Pakistan slogan, closed down shops in parts of the state capital, Bangalore.

However, at an emergency meeting of the national party in Delhi, the BJP leaders urged restraint.

Largely peaceful

Authorities in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh say the strike has been peaceful.

They said security has been tightened in the disputed religious site in Ayodhya and two others in Varanasi and Mathura.

	Temple facts: Owned by one of India's richest Hindu sects Built 10 years ago by nearly 1,000 craftsmen Made of 6,000 intricately carved blocks of pink sandstone Visited by two million people every year 'Temple of peace'

But Muslims have expressed fears that the extra security measures promised will be inadequate.

"You can see for yourself there are no police around," Muslim representative Aziz Gandhi told Reuters in Ahmedabad's Dariapur district, which was badly hit by the earlier violence.

Salim Khan, a cobbler in the city said: "If they had brought in the army like this last time there would not have been all that bloodshed. They could have saved so many lives."

An organiser at the Shah Alam relief camp in the city said about 370 Muslims had arrived seeking refuge and the mood was "insecure".

"We don't want a repeat of what happened after Godhra," said Shafi Memon, referring to the train attack in which nearly 60 Hindus were burnt to death by a Muslim mob.

Accusations

Two alleged members of a radical Islamic group attacked the Swaminarayan Temple in Gandhinagar on Tuesday, killing men, women and children before eventually being shot dead by Indian commandos.

Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee has promised a full investigation into those responsible for the attack but one of his deputies, Lal Krishna Advani, has already put the blame on Pakistan indirectly.

"Even last week our enemy spoke of Gujarat in the United Nations, so it seems that the plan was on for quite some time," he said, referring to a speech by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf at the UN on 12 September.

Pakistani Information Minister Nisar Memon described the idea that his country had been involved as "preposterous".

The Indian officer who led the operation against the two gunmen, Brigadier Raj Sitapathy, has told the BBC that they were found carrying letters which poured "venom" on India.

He suggested that they belonged to a Pakistani-based militant group called Tehrik-e-Qassas - a faction, he said, for the outlawed Lashkar-e-Toiba.