A QUARREL over a ball that fell inside a temple flared into a riot that left three Muslims dead and over 35 people injured in this communally sensitive town on Sunday morning.
Police said two youths died when a former municipal councillor opened fire on a stone-throwing mob, and the third in police firing.
Trouble started when some Muslim boys playing cricket entered the Gangeshwar Mahadev temple in the Chand Fadi area to retrieve their ball.
The ball hit a small idol and this may have enraged the people sitting near the temple, said Deputy Inspector-General A.K. Sharma, who is in charge of the Ahmedabad range.
‘‘People chided the Muslim boys for entering the temple. Groups from the Muslim neighbourhood joined the argument and this was followed by stone throwing,’’ Inspector Chattarsinh Chavda said.
He said Purshottam Jadhav, a former municipal councillor of the town, had then opened fire from his licensed .12 bore gun, after which rioting broke out.
However, some of the injured, who are being treated at an Ahmedabad hospital, said there were other civilians who had opened fire as well.
Mobs from both communities gathered and there was heavy stone throwing. Shops were looted and properties set afire in the Chand Fadi and Sheikhwad areas.
Police said they fired 27 rounds when teargas failed to clear the mobs. They have seized Jadhav’s gun and arrested him, along with 25 people from both communities.
The dead were identified as Zakir Allahrakha, Zakir Yusuf Multani, and Sharifbhai Shafi. Allahrakha died on the spot, and the others on way to the V.S. Hospital in Ahmedabad. According to police, only Shafi fell to their bullets.
Viramgam, some 70 km from Ahmedabad, has had 38 communal flare-ups in the last year.
The most recent was in August, over disposal of carcasses by a Muslim contractor.
‘‘Hindus are always waiting to attack us. This time they chose a cricket match as a pretext,’’ said Wahida Begum, wife of one of the men who died in the firing.
Hindus allege Muslim boys misbehave with women at the temple and frequently try to enter it.
‘‘Post-Godhra, people here wait for a reason to start a brawl,’’ said DIG Sharma.
District collector Anita Karwal, who visited the spot and spoke to people from both communities, said, ‘‘No specific reason can be given for this. This area has always been communally sensitive.’’ Curfew has been clamped on the town, and a company of State Reserve Police has been deployed there. Three cases have been registered.
At the Hazrat Pir Mohammad Shah General Hospital in the Juhapura area of Ahmedabad, 28 Muslim victims of the riot are being treated, some of them for injury by shrapnel.
‘‘Most of them have been discharged, but seven are under observation and will be released tomorrow,’’ said an administrator at the hospital.
Twelve-year-old Mohammad Shoaib Abdul Kadar, who was among the boys whose ball sparked off the riot, is being treated for shrapnel wounds on his chest.
He said, ‘‘It started with exhange of abuses between a man and one of our fielders who went to get the ball. A man abused him and told him the ball shouldn’t land in the temple. The fielder answered back and was slapped. One of our players then hit the man with his bat. The man then returned with a gun and fired on us.’’
Mustafa Ismail Vyapari, a daily wager, said he was going to the market about 9 a.m. to get medicine for his daughter when he saw people pelting stones and throwing bulbs.
‘‘I also saw two men firing on the crowd with a big-nozzle gun,’’ he said. ‘‘I got hurt in the right leg and thigh.’’
Babu Mustafa, a rickshaw driver, says he was injured by shrapnel in the right shoulder while getting some children to safety.