NEW DELHI: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for calm on Wednesday after Delhi’s worst sectarian violence in decades left at least 24 people dead and calls for a military curfew.
This week’s battles have seen mobs armed with swords, guns and acid raze parts of a northeastern district of the Indian capital.
The clashes, which also left almost 200 injured, were triggered by protests against a citizenship law seen by many critics as part of Modi’s Hindu nationalist agenda.
They exploded into brutal violence on Monday and Tuesday, with residents forced to flee their homes after seeing dwellings destroyed, a mosque attacked and a tyre market and two schools set ablaze.
“I appeal to my sisters and brothers of Delhi to maintain peace and brotherhood at all times. It is important... calm and normalcy is restored at the earliest,” Modi tweeted.
Delhi’s chief minister, Arvind Kejriwal, a political opponent, called for the army to be deployed and for a curfew to be imposed. “Police, despite all (their) efforts, (are) unable to control the situation and instill confidence,” Kejriwal tweeted.
Delhi Police spokesman Mandeep Singh Randhawa told reporters 106 people had been arrested and police were scouring CCTV footage to look for the perpetrators of the violence.
Sunil Kumar, the director of Guru Teg Bahadur (GTB) Hospital where many of the wounded were taken, said on Wednesday almost 60 had gunshot injuries and that 16 new patients were admitted on Wednesday.
Twenty-two people died at GTB, while another two passed away at Lok Nayak Hospital on Wednesday, medical superintendent Kishore Singh said.
On Wednesday morning residents cleaned out the blackened interior of a trashed mosque, including a charred Koran, burned out during the violence in the Ashok Nagar area.
A video circulated on social media and verified showed men ripping off the muezzin’s loudspeaker on top of the mosque’s minaret and installing a Hindu religious flag. Locals accused the police of doing nothing to help — or worse. “We tried to make many calls to the police... that people are entering our neighbourhoods chanting ‘Jai Shree Ram’,” said Naeem Malik, referring to a popular Hindu chant.
“But police did not help us at all. We tried to save the women at the protest site but instead policemen started beating us up,” he said, showing wounds on his leg and hands.
Elsewhere a firetruck tried to put out blazes from the previous night, the air thick with smoke from still-smouldering cars, motorbikes, shops and homes.
“They say we are not Indians, but we are Indians by blood,” Farhat, 22, a student in Islamic studies, said in her father’s shop as police looked on. “There is no police in the streets at night, just during the day.” — AFP
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