The Hindu : 3 killed in Baroda violence

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Mar 18, 2002

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National

3 killed in Baroda violence
By Manas Dasgupta

Houses set on fire by miscreants in Baroda on Saturday. - PTI

AHMEDABAD, MARCH 17. Three persons were killed and about 20 injured in stabbing and police firing in Baroda as the city was rocked by violence and an uneasy calm prevailed in most other parts of riot-torn Gujarat today.

In Ahmedabad, except for an incident of arson in which several shops were set afire in Dani Limda locality following a pitched battle between two communities, the situation by and large remained peaceful with the Army staging a flag march in the curfew-bound areas.

Curfew relaxation was promptly withdrawn from most parts of Baroda and new areas brought under it as two people were lynched by a mob when they came to collect their belongings from the houses they had vacated earlier.

The police said some people came in two vehicles to collect the belongings from their houses in Makarpura which they had vacated in the wake of the communal disturbances a fortnight ago. The people in the nearby localities mistook it as an ``attack'' and soon several hundred people collected there.

The two vehicles were attacked by the mob and one person managed to escape. Some others were caught by the mob. While two were killed on the spot, about 18 persons suffered stab wounds of which the condition of at least two of them was stated to be serious.

One person was killed and another injured in police firing in the curfew-bound Ajwa locality on the outskirts of Baroda, where a mob of about 500 set fire to slum houses and also indulged in heavy stone throwing.

Reports of stone throwing and group clashes were also reported from some other curfew-bound areas, including Pani Gate, Vadi, Sayajiganj and Raopura. Curfew was also extended to Makarpura following the attack. However, curfew was relaxed for a few hours in some of the affected areas. While there was no relaxation of curfew in the five police station areas in Ahmedabad, at least half a dozen other towns and villages also continued to reel under curfew including parts of Broach, Balasinor, Petlad, Dabhoi, and Vadali towns and Panvad and Kanvad villages in central Gujarat.

The police have made elaborate security arrangements in view of the secondary and higher secondary examinations beginning tomorrow except in Ahmedabad and Baroda where the examinations had been postponed in view of the continued disturbances.

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