Gujarat suspects held in Kashmir

It is the first time a Kashmir resident has been linked to the attacks

By Altaf Hussein BBC correspondent in Srinagar

Police in Indian-administered Kashmir say they have arrested two people suspected of involvement in the train massacre at Godhra in the Indian state of Gujarat in February this year.

Rioting left about 1,000 dead and tens of thousands homeless

They have been handed over to Gujarat police for questioning.

More than 50 passengers, all from the majority Hindu community, were killed after a Muslim mob allegedly set fire to a train at Godhra.

The incident led to widespread anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat, some of the worst in India in the past 50 years.

'No militant involvement'

It is the first time that a resident of Kashmir, where an anti-Indian uprising has been going on for the past 13 years, has been linked to the massacre of the train passengers at Godhra.

One of the two detainees has been identified as Ali Mohammad Sheikh, a shopkeeper in the southern town of Anandnag.

A spokesman for the Kashmir police says that they were arrested at the insistence of the Gujarat police which had obtained warrants of arrest against them from a court in Ahmedabad.

But he says neither of the two detainees has any history of involvement in any militant activity.

Allegations

He says they visited Godhra often and that their names cropped up during interrogation of some of the suspects.

A team of the Gujarat police, headed by the deputy inspector-general of Ahmedabad, took the two detainees to the state after obtaining a remand from a court in the Kashmir capital, Srinagar, on Friday.

The team had arrived in Srinagar three days ago.

There have been widespread allegations that the state's right-wing BJP government acted as a mute spectator to the riots, which left about 1,000 people dead and tens of thousands homeless.