Two Dead in Indian Religious Riots Over Hindu Land

A Muslim trader was seriously injured after he set himself on fire when a Hindu mob beat him up and ransacked his shop.

A scattered strike over the transfer of forest land to a Hindu shrine turned violent in central India on Thursday, with two people killed and dozens injured in religious clashes, police said.

Strike supporters shut down transport and businesses in several Indian states, as protesters blocked roads, smashed vehicles and stopped trains.

They were protesting against the government of Indian Kashmir for reversing a decision to transfer forest land to a shrine trust in the Muslim-majority part of the state.

The government was forced to back down after Muslim protesters shut down Kashmir last week over the transfer of land, a move that has angered thousands of Hindus in India.

On Thursday, authorities imposed curfew in Indore, a town in the central state of Madhya Pradesh, where two people were killed when Hindu groups clashed with Muslim residents, forcing police to open fire and lob dozens of tear gas shells.

A Muslim trader was seriously injured after he set himself on fire when a Hindu mob beat him up and ransacked his shop in a remote town in the state, police said.

Hindu protesters have demanded that land be allotted to Hindus for building temporary shelters built for Hindu pilgrims who visit Amarnath cave in Kashmir every year to pray by an ice stalagmite considered holy.

In the eastern state of Bihar, supporters of the Hindu Nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), who called the one-day strike, blocked trains and damaged vehicles in the capital Patna.

Carrying party flags and wearing saffron turbans, Hindu protesters shouted "Kashmir Hamara hai" (Kashmir is ours) as they forced traders to close shops.

OPPOSITION

The BJP, which is India's main opposition party, supports the demand for temporary shelters.

"The response to the strike shows the anger of the people against the government's attack on secular fabric of the country," Prakash Javdekar, a senior BJP leader, told Reuters in New Delhi. "They surrendered meekly under pressure from separatists."

But the western state of Gujarat, one of BJP's most important states, refused to join the protest. Officials said they needed to focus on a possible early general election.

Authorities in Jammu, the part of Kashmir where Hindus are a majority, imposed a curfew for the second day in a row, forcing residents to stay indoors.

"We have not yet taken any decision on relaxing it," a police spokesman said.

The impact of the strike was also felt in some northern Indian states, where protesters clashed with police and threw stones at passing vehicles.

There was no impact of the strike in New Delhi, the nation's capital.

Over 100 protesters were held in the southern city of Hyderabad, police said, but in India's Information Technology (IT) hub, Bangalore, life was normal.

"It is business as usual, we are not off," a spokeswoman for Infosys, India's top software company, told Reuters. Bangalore is home to over 1,500 IT companies.

In India's financial capital, Mumbai, hundreds of protesters blocked traffic on the highway from the domestic airport for more than half-an-hour, officials said.

In the central state of Madhya Pradesh and Maoist-dominated Chhattisgarh, activists of conservative Hindu groups patrolled streets with bamboo canes to enforce a total strike.