Ahmedabad back on the boil: seven killed in violence

Gill has already held three rounds of meetings with Director General of Police (DGP) K Chakravarthi. Before that he had taken a round of the city, visiting the worst-affected Naroda Patiya area, besides Kalupur and Jamalpur, to assess the situation.

The police said today the violence began with residents of areas dominated by both the communities preventing those displaced by the rioting from returning home. Trouble broke out first at the Shah Alam Tol Naka and the Parikshitlal Nagar Colony in Behrampura.

Around 1 p.m., an auto-rickshaw driver was dragged out of his vehicle, stabbed, and burnt alive near Shah Alam Tol Naka. Soon arson was reported from Parikshitlal Nagar colony in Behrampura, a kilometre away. Here, residents ransacked and set on fire houses and businesses of people who were away in relief camps in order to prevent their return.

At Parikshitlal Nagar, a 42-year-old man was hit by stones and stabbed in a clash between two groups. He was declared dead on arrival at the V.S. Hospital. A four-year-old boy, meanwhile, died in the area when he was caught in a stampede set off by the rioters. At Bhoolabhai Park, also in the Behrampura area, a man was stabbed and burnt to death.

Police lobbed tear-gas shells and also opened fire to disperse rioters. One man who was hit by a tear-gas shell on his head died. About a dozen others who were injured in police firing are being treated at V.S. Hospital.

At least 25 shops were burnt down in the area as also shanties made atop residential blocks of Parikshitlal Nagar colony. Some auto-spares godowns and shops in the New Bharat Kabadi Market were also set afire.

In the Maninagar area, the body of a man with stab wounds was found near R.S.S. Bhavan. Police said that residents of the localities where the burnt bodies were found had said these had been dumped there from vehicles.

Around 4 p.m., large-scale rioting was reported from Shahpur and Danilimda and indefinite curfew was imposed. One man was killed in police firing in the Danilimda area.

Joint Commissioner (Sector-II) M.K. Tandon, who was supervising riot control in the Behrampura area, said, ‘‘Since the situation in the past two days was calm, some Muslim residents of Parikshitlal Nagar who are now living in relief camps came on Saturday to see if they could return home. They went back yesterday, probably thinking they would move back. But today in the afternoon, the locals set their shops and houses on fire.’’

Special I-G Chitturi Surendra Prasad said a large contingent of police and paramilitary forces was used to quell the rioting.

Meanwhile, the body of an unidentified man was found on the Naroda-Chiloda road. It wasn’t known immediately if the death was related to the violence.