| Hindus and Muslims clashed in Gujarat on Monday, throwing stones and torching shops in riots that killed one person and injured 12 before police scattered the mob with tear gas. Senior government official A.C. Rathore told Reuters the violence was triggered by a Muslim boy teasing a Hindu girl. "The clashes started after an eve-teasing incident involving a Muslim boy," he said, using a common phrase for offensive remarks made to a woman. "Details are sketchy at the moment, though several incidents of arson have been reported." Gujarat has suffered sporadic religious clashes since 2002, when it was convulsed by India's worst religious riots in nearly a decade. Authorities have rushed in additional police forces to defuse the violence in the port town of Veraval, 350 km southwest of Ahmedabad, and imposed a curfew until Tuesday morning. "Initial reports are not worrisome. But we are not taking any chances," said state police chief A.K. Bhargav. More than 1,000 people, most of them Muslim, died in Gujarat in 2002 in a series of reprisal attacks after a suspected Muslim mob set fire to a train and burnt alive 59 Hindus. Non-government groups put the toll in that violence at more than 2,500. |