By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Filed at 3:22 p.m. ET http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-India-Religious-Strife.html?ex=1033704000&en=9667ec08736c7467&ei=5040&partner=MOREOVER AHMADABAD, India (AP) -- An enemy of India meticulously planned the attack on a well-known Hindu temple in western India to inflame hatred between Hindus and Muslims, a top official said Thursday, in a dig at rival Pakistan. ``They could be from an enemy country ... from outside India,'' Chief Minister Narendra Modi said, using India's typical way of indirectly blaming its longtime rival, Pakistan. Pakistan has repeatedly denied any involvement in Tuesday's assault, which left 33 people dead and 76 wounded. Pakistan has also condemned the attack, which occurred in the western state of Gujarat where Modi is the top elected official. ``The terrorists were well trained, experienced and highly motivated. From the type of firearms and ammunition and the latest equipment they had on them, they did not look like local people,'' Modi told a news conference in Ahmadabad, the commercial hub of Gujarat. Paramilitary police and soldiers were deployed across Gujarat to prevent revenge attacks against local Muslims. Gujarat was the site of widespread sectarian violence earlier this year that killed at least 1,000, mostly Muslims. The gunmen in the temple attack have not been identified, but police said they carried a letter saying they ``could not tolerate what happened to children, women and Muslims during the Gujarat riots.'' The massacre raised fears of Hindu retaliation like the earlier riots, which followed a Feb. 27 attack in Gujarat in which Muslims allegedly set fire to a train carrying Hindu nationalists. Hindu nationalists marched in protest and mobs stabbed two Muslim men in Gujarat on Thursday, as thousands of Muslims fled their homes to seek safety. They had called for a nationwide strike to protest the temple raid, and brandished weapons and shouted anti-Pakistan slogans on the streets in the Gujarat town of Baroda, police said. The strike shut down shops, schools and transportation in many parts of the country. Police detained hundreds of workers of the World Hindu Council. Protesters threw stones and stopped some passenger trains in Bombay, where most residents stayed home. Life in major cities in Uttar Pradesh state, home to the largest number of Indian Muslims, was paralyzed, including in Agra, site of the Taj Mahal, where shops and offices were closed and there was no public transport. There was no sign of a strike Thursday in most parts of India's capital, New Delhi. However, shops were closed in the Muslim-dominated Old City near the main mosque. In the town of Surat in Gujarat, Hindu mobs stabbed one Muslim as he got out of a three-wheeled auto rickshaw and another as he came out of his house, said Police Commissioner V.K. Gupta. He said both men were hospitalized and two Hindus had been arrested. The town is about 190 miles north of Gandhinagar, where the temple attack occurred. Muslim families fled neighborhoods with no police presence to government-run relief camps set up after the earlier violence. The population at one camp jumped to 2,300 people from 1,300 overnight. ``What if there is another backlash?'' said Ershad Sayyed, who left his home Wednesday night to join 100 others in a mosque. ``I am carrying whatever little cash I had, and some clothes. I hope nothing happens,'' said Maqsud Qureshi, a widow with a young daughter. ``I pray that this mindless violence and bloodshed ends soon.'' He said there were similarities between the temple assault and an attack on the Indian Parliament in December, which India blamed on Pakistan and pushed the two sides to the brink of a war. He said the temple attackers had come with supplies of food and ammunition and had planned to take hostages. In the earlier attack on parliament, police believe the militants also intended to take prisoners because they came supplied with food and rope to bind hostages. |