NEW DEHLI: Authorities deployed hundreds of riot police and cut mobile Internet services in parts of eastern India on Sunday after violent clashes erupted in at least eight states during a Hindu religious festival.<\/p>\n
Police said one person was shot dead in the Nalanda district of Bihar state on Saturday after majority Hindus and minority Muslims clashed in the town of Biharsharif.<\/p>\n
This came a day after mobs fought running battles and set fire to homes and shops during at times frenzied public celebrations of Ram Navami.<\/p>\n
Hindu festivals regularly feature hundreds of people \u2014 sometimes brandishing swords, guns and tridents \u2014 provocatively marching through Muslim neighborhoods with religious music pulsating through powerful sound systems.<\/p>\n
Biharsharif police chief Shibli Nomani said nearly 100 people have been detained over violence that erupted on Thursday when thousands of Hindus rallied on the streets and paraded through Muslim-dominated areas.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe situation is under control. We are patrolling the area and ensuring no gatherings are allowed,\u201d he told AFP, adding that the unrest was being investigated.<\/p>\n
Similar communal flare-ups were reported in two other cities in Bihar, where authorities shut mobile Internet services in some areas and clamped down on public movement.<\/p>\n
In Rohtas, another district hit by violence where police arrested dozens, six people were injured in an explosion inside a house where two men were allegedly making a bomb.<\/p>\n
Bihar police tweeted that at first glance it did not appear that the blast was related to the recent unrest. Homemade explosives are sometimes used in mining in the area.<\/p>\n
Sectarian violence also hit seven other states in recent days following the Hindu festival on Thursday, with dozens injured and hundreds arrested in at least 13 towns and cities.<\/p>\n
This included Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and the Howrah region of the eastern state of West Bengal where mobs rampaged and torched vehicles and shops on Thursday.<\/p>\n
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi\u2019s Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party of orchestrating the violence. The BJP accused her of targeting Hindus.<\/p>\n
Similar violence was reported in Modi\u2019s home state of Gujarat on Thursday in western India where clashes were reported in Vadodara along with Aurangabad in the western region of Maharashtra.<\/p>\n
Critics say that hard-line Hindu groups have been emboldened since Modi, who was Gujarat state chief minister during huge riots there in 2002, was elected prime minister in 2014.<\/p>\n
Last year, similar clashes were reported across several cities on Ram Navami, including in New Delhi and in Jharkhand in eastern India where one person was killed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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