NEW DELHI – Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for calm Wednesdayafter Delhi’s worst sectarian violence in decades left at least 27 peopledead and prompted demands for a military curfew.
This week’s battles between Hindus and Muslims have seen mobs armed withswords, guns and acid raze parts of a northeastern district of the Indiancapital.
The clashes, which also left more than 200 injured, were triggered byprotests against a citizenship law seen by many critics as anti-Muslim andpart of Modi’s Hindu nationalist agenda.
They exploded into brutal violence on Monday and Tuesday, with residentsforced to flee their homes after seeing dwellings destroyed, a mosqueattacked and a tyre market and two schools set ablaze.
“I appeal to my sisters and brothers of Delhi to maintain peace andbrotherhood at all times. It is important… calm and normalcy is restoredat the earliest,” Modi tweeted on Wednesday.
Delhi’s chief minister, Arvind Kejriwal, a political opponent, called forthe army to be deployed and for a curfew to be imposed.
“Police, despite all (their) efforts, (are) unable to control the situationand instil confidence,” Kejriwal tweeted.
Delhi Police spokesman Mandeep Singh Randhawa told reporters 106 people hadbeen arrested.
The US embassy issued a travel warning advising citizens to exercisecaution in the wake of the violence.
– Fear, anger –
Sunil Kumar, the director of Guru Teg Bahadur (GTB) Hospital where many ofthe wounded were taken, told AFP on Wednesday almost 60 had gunshotinjuries and that 16 new patients were admitted on Wednesday.
Twenty-five people died at GTB, while another two passed away at Lok NayakHospital Wednesday, medical superintendent Kishore Singh told AFP.
On Wednesday morning residents cleaned out the blackened interior of atrashed mosque, including a charred Koran, burned out during the violencein the Ashok Nagar area.
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A video circulated on social media and verified by AFP showed men rippingoff the muezzin’s loudspeaker on top of the mosque’s minaret and installinga Hindu religious flag.
Locals accused the police of doing nothing to help — or worse.
“We tried to make many calls to the police… that people are entering ourneighbourhoods chanting ‘Jai Shree Ram’,” said Naeem Malik, referring to apopular Hindu chant.
“But police did not help us at all. We tried to save the women at theprotest site but instead policemen started beating us up,” he said, showingwounds on his leg and hands.
Elsewhere a firetruck tried to put out blazes from the previous night, theair thick with smoke from still-smouldering cars, motorbikes, shops andhomes.
“They say we are not Indians, but we are Indians by blood,” Farhat, 22, astudent in Islamic studies, said in her father’s shop as police looked on.
“There is no police in the streets at night, just during the day.”
The area is home to mostly poorer economic migrants from elsewhere in Indialiving in shanty neighbourhoods, and some fled on Wednesday ahead of moreexpected clashes.
– ‘Politics of hate’ –
The unrest comes amid growing concerns at home and abroad about India’sdirection and the future of its 200 million Muslims since Modi’s Hindunationalist BJP swept to a second term last year.
Sonia Gandhi, president of the opposition Congress party, on Wednesdayaccused BJP figures of giving “inflammatory speeches spreading anatmosphere of hatred and fear”, including in Delhi city elections thismonth. – APP / AFP
