Ban Sought on Hindu Extremists

A leading Christian group in India called for a ban on Hindu extremist groups Wednesday, saying they had also targeted Christians during last week’s religious violence in Gujarat state that killed more than 600 people, most of them Muslims.

The All India Christian Council said the Hindu groups have “engaged in a constant hate campaign against the minorities” and are training hundreds of thousands of people in armed warfare.

It said it would ask the U.N. Commission on Human Rights and other international agencies to investigate the activities and funding of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, or World Hindu Council, and its affiliates.

The Hindu council has branches worldwide and is supported by donations from Hindu expatriates.

Christians account for 2% of India’s 1 billion people, and Muslims 12%. Hindus make up more than 80%.

The Christian council’s secretary-general, John Dayal, said that members of the Hindu council and other groups burned down a Roman Catholic mission in the village of Sanjeli, attacking two priests with stones, and that a Hindu mob ransacked a missionary school near the city of Godhra.

The account could not immediately be independently confirmed.

Hindu hard-liners are accused of encouraging riots that killed hundreds of Muslims over six days in Gujarat. The riots followed a Feb. 27 arson attack by a Muslim mob on a train carrying Hindu activists back from the city of Ayodhya, where the Hindu council wants to build a temple on a site where a mosque was destroyed in 1992.

Fifty-eight people were killed in the train fire and 544 in the subsequent riots.

Muslim volunteers performed a mass burial Wednesday for the unclaimed bodies of 186 Muslims in Ahmadabad, the largest city in Gujarat and the worst hit in the violence.

A Muslim legislator was shot and killed Wednesday during a political rally in Uttar Pradesh state. A Hindu suspect was apprehended, but police said the slaying was unrelated to the religious rioting.

Manzoor Ahmed of the Samajwadi Party was shot outside the governor’s house in the state capital of Lucknow, police said.