Indian town tense after 7 Muslims killed

Gauracandra · October 27, 2001

October 27, 2001 Posted: 5:36 AM EDT (0936 GMT)

MUMBAI, India (Reuters) -- A western Indian town was tense on Saturday a day after police fired on a crowd of Muslims when a campaign for a boycott of U.S. and British goods descended into violence.

The death toll from the shooting on Friday in Malegaon, 250 km (157 miles) from Mumbai, rose to seven after four people died in hospital, police said on Saturday.

Three people were killed in the shooting on Friday when violence erupted near a mosque in the Maharashtra state town after a police officer tore up a pamphlet being distributed by a Muslim group calling for a boycott of U.S. and British goods.

"No fresh violence has been reported since yesterday (Friday) afternoon. But tension still prevails and curfew has been clamped," a police official told Reuters.

Police said 14 people were injured and were in hospital.

"The pamphlets asked people to ban all foreign goods made in America and Britain," the state's home (interior) minister, Chhagan Bhujbal, told reporters.

Bhujbal said more security forces had been sent to Malegaon and the army were out in the town on Saturday morning to show the situation was under control.

A delegation representing five Muslim groups met Bhujbal to demand a judicial inquiry into the shooting.

Muslim protests

"The United States says the attacks on the two cities on Sept. 11 were an act of terrorism, then the killings of innocent people and children in Afghanistan by America and Britain also amount to terrorism," said a member of the delegation who declined to be identified.

"Hence we are asking for boycott for their goods."

There have been protests in several Indian cities by Muslim groups since the start of the U.S.-led strikes in Afghanistan on Oct. 7.

The government of predominantly Hindu India has firmly backed the operation aimed at flushing out Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden who is in hiding.

Maharashtra state, which has a sizeable Muslim population, has seen bloody communal violence in the past.