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India-Pakistan
57 killed in senseless violence
2002-02-27
  • At least 57 people, including 15 children, were killed when an express train carrying Hindu activists was set on fire by a mob in a Muslim-dominated area of Gujarat. Around 80 people were injured, some of them with severe burns. Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee appealed for calm and stressed that national security would be maintained at all costs. An indefinite curfew was imposed in the area and police were issued with shoot-on-sight orders, as reports came in of sporadic sectarian violence in various areas of the state, which has a history of Hindu-Muslim turbulence.

    The activists on the train were returning from the northern town of Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh state, where tens of thousands of right-wing Hindus have been gathering in defiance of court orders to build a temple on the ruins of a 16th century mosque that was razed by Hindu zealots in 1992. The attackers appeared to be Muslims, but officials including the prime minister refused to confirm their identity. "It is a very unfortunate and tragic incident," Vajpayee said, calling on the radical group spearheading the Ayodhya temple drive -- the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP or World Hindu Council) -- to stand down.
    This was entirely avoidable, an episode brought about by the posturings of a bunch of jugheads who're jealous of the amount of attention Muslim idiots get. The head cheeses of the VHP should be rounded up. Those who aren't shot should be beaten. One also wonders what relationship, if any, there is to the attacks on Shiites in Pakland - though this mosque/temple situation has been brewing merrily enough of its own. Who's benefiting from it? I dunno.
    • Posted by:Fred Pruitt

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