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Nine Killed in Continuing Ahmadabad Riots
Wednesday May 8, 2002 / Safar 24, 1423 A.H.
The Daily Jang

Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh told the upper house of parliament India would not accept being lectured by foreign countries over the riots after some lawmakers voiced concern over media reports of criticism from the European Union.

AHMEDABAD, India -- DJ
Nine people were killed Tuesday as Hindus and Muslims hurled acid-filled light bulbs and stones at each other on Tuesday in the latest religious violence to hit India's riot-torn western Gujarat state, police said.

The latest unrest came as opposition MPs walked out of parliament in protest over reports that relief camps housing hundreds of thousands of people displaced by the Gujarat violence could be closed.

Two men were shot dead in a Muslim-dominated suburb on the outskirts of the city when police opened fire to disperse a mob that went on a rampage after news spread that a Muslim teacher had been earlier burnt alive by a Hindu mob.

The teacher was riding a scooter on Ahmedabad's outskirts when he was halted by attackers who doused him with petrol and set him ablaze, a senior city police official told Reuters. In retaliation, Muslims stabbed a man, set him on fire and threw him into a well where he was found dead, police added. The same rampaging mob then torched a truck and some shops.

"Two people died in the police firing aimed at breaking up the mob," a police official told AFP. Two more deaths were reported by police late Tuesday but no other details were available. The latest killings bring the death toll in the fresh spate of Hindu-Muslim riots since the weekend to 17.
(More: The Daily Jang News Source)
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