Thousands in India Riot Over Rushdie Novel; 10 Killed

Police on Friday fired on thousands of Muslims during rioting over the novel “The Satanic Verses,” killing at least 10 people and wounding 40 in the birthplace of the book’s author, police said.

It was the bloodiest outbreak of violence sparked by the book anywhere to date.

Police said the rioting erupted during a strike called by Islamic organizations in Bombay to denounce the novel, which many Muslims view as blasphemous. Iran’s spiritual leader, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, has called for the slaying of its author, Salman Rushdie, who was born in Bombay but is now a British citizen.

Initially, more than 400 people joined a march through Muslim-dominated sections of Bombay, India’s commercial capital, after Friday prayer services and were confronted by riot police, who ordered them to disperse, police said.

The marchers refused and began showering officers with bottles and rocks. They were joined by residents, who threw debris from rooftops and balconies.

Rioting involving an estimated 2,000 people spread to other Muslim pockets of the city. Police staged numerous baton charges in unsuccessful attempts to disperse the crowds, who set fire to several state-run buses and other vehicles.

Police said officers in several areas were forced to open fire, killing at least 10 protesters. At least 40 other people, including a number of officers, were wounded in clashes or by bullets, they said.

The situation was reported “under control” by evening, with police conducting vigorous patrols in the riot-hit areas.

In India’s predominantly Muslim state of Jammu and Kashmir, at least two people were killed in clashes between protesters and police earlier this month. In the Pakistani capital of Islamabad, five people were shot dead by police Feb. 6 during a protest in front of the U.S. Information Center.

The violence in Bombay came as India’s most influential Islamic cleric endorsed Khomeini’s call for the killing of the author, which has been backed up by offers of rewards by Iran.

“Rushdie has not only dishonored Islam, but has inflicted wounds on Muslims the world over,” the Press Trust of India news agency quoted Abdulla Bukhari as telling a congregation at the 17th-Century Jama Masjid, India’s largest mosque, in the old section of New Delhi.

After Bukhari delivered his speech, hundreds of Muslims marched from the mosque across New Delhi toward the British High Commission, shouting “Long live Khomeini!” They were stopped by hundreds of police about one-half mile from the British mission, and they dispersed without incident.

Demonstrations also were reported in the Indian cities of Calcutta, Darjeeling, Varanasi, Patna and Siliguri.

More than 90 million Muslims live in India, where they make up about 11% of the population of 880 million.

In Tehran, Iranian Parliament Speaker Hashemi Rafsanjani justified Khomeini’s death call against Rushdie as being rooted in the foundations of Islam, according to a report by Iran’s official IRNA news agency monitored in Bahrain.

Rafsanjani also indicated that Iran would not be responsible if someone complies with the death order, saying that if “any Muslim carried out his duty, this cannot have any link with the Islamic Republic of Iran. . . . The West may also instigate its own agents to carry out unprincipled and devilish acts so (it could then) blame Iran.”

President Bush this week warned that he would hold Iran responsible for attacks on U.S. interests stemming from the Iranian death decree against Rushdie.