Daily Times - Site Edition Saturday, March 04, 2006

3 killed as protests degenerate into Hindu-Muslim riots

* Armed clashes in Lucknow, Hyderabad and Srinagar

LUCKNOW: Three people were killed and several injured on Friday when protests in northern India against US President George W Bush’s visit turned into street riots between Hindus and Muslims, officials said.

Police in Lucknow, capital of Uttar Pradesh state, used teargas and truncheons to break up clashes between Muslims and Hindus when the protests degenerated into fierce street riots, said city police chief Ashutoch Pandey.

“Muslims after offering prayers went around ordering shops to down their shutters to protest President Bush’s visit to India which sparked off the clashes because the Hindus objected,” Pandey said. “One person was killed in the exchange of fire between the two communities,” he said. “Dozens of people were injured in the clashes.”

“Two of those killed are Hindus and one is a Muslim,” said local government official Ghulam Abbas. Two of the victims were shot dead, one of them a 15-year-old girl, while a third man died in hospital after sustaining a gunshot wound, Abbas said.

Seventeen others had been admitted to hospital with injuries, he added. Protests by Muslims also turned violent in southern Hyderabad city during a four-hour visit by Bush to the hi-tech hub, police said. Five people were injured in clashes between riot police and protestors, they said.

In Srinagar some 35 people were hurt in clashes with police by Muslims protesting Bush’s three-day visit to India as well as the publication of Danish caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).

Several thousand Muslims chanting “Death to enemies of Islam” and “Down with US” poured out of Srinagar’s main mosque after Friday prayers and tried to march on a United Nations office, witnesses said.

In Hyderabad, Bush met farmers and weavers at an agricultural university, changing the focus from the heavy political agenda which marked his first full day Thursday, when he and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh sealed a deal that aims to give India access to US civilian nuclear technology.

“Yesterday was a way to put the Cold War behind us (and) move forward as strategic partners,” Bush told young entrepreneurs in Hyderabad. “I want to congratulate your prime minister and the Indian government for working with me and our government to show the world what is possible when people come together and think strategically,” Bush said.

The deal, the highlight of Bush’s three-day trip to India, commits Washington to seek approval from the US Congress and the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group to share their civilian nuclear technology with India.Bush also ruled out protectionist measures to address domestic concerns on outsourcing to India and said he favoured easy access for Indian students to American universities and schools.

“I have taken a position, the US will reject protectionism. We won’t fear competition. We welcome competition,” he told the students, even as-anti-US protestors shut down the main business centre. Police in the southern city overnight slapped banned the flying of kites and balloons, which Muslim activists had said they would fly bearing anti-Bush slogans as part of their protest against US policies in the Middle East.

Bush was scheduled to deliver a speech to political and business leaders late Friday at a 16th-century Mughal fort in New Delhi before departing for neighbouring Pakistan. afp

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