Curfew in Hyderabad, India : Clashes between Hindus and Muslims

Indian police imposed an indefinite curfew in Hyderabad after three days of violence between Hindus and Muslims that killed one person and injured more than 50. More than 100 people have been arrested in connection with the violence that began Saturday when a group of Hindu devotees replaced some Muslim religious flags with Hindu ones at a place of worship, police said. One man was stabbed to death in street battles between Hindu and Muslim mobs. Several religious buildings were damaged and shops, buses and cars were set on fire.

A thousand paramilitary forces have been deployed to restore peace in the riot-affected areas of old Hyderabad city where a curfew was imposed Monday following clashes between two religious groups. The curfew was expanded to the entire city Tuesday.

“The curfew was imposed after reports of fresh violence today,” Hyderabad police commissioner A.K. Khan said, adding “anybody creating trouble will be dealt with firmly.”

Mr. Khan said the state police force had been put on high alert in view of a festival celebrating the birth of the Hindu god Hanuman Tuesday.

Hyderabad, a city of about four million, has a vibrant Muslim history but recently has become better known as a high-tech hub second only to Bangalore. The city has been facing turmoil over demands for the creation of a new southern Indian state. The crisis was sparked December last year by the hunger strike of K. Chandrashekar Rao, who heads the Telangana Rashtra Samithi, a political party dedicated to the creation of the separate state of Telangana from about half of what is now Andhra Pradesh.

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