2 die in clashes between police, Muslim protesters in India’s financial capital

By Rajesh Shah

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

MUMBAI, India — Two people died and dozens were injured in clashes Saturday in India’s financial capital between police and thousands of Muslims who were protesting the deaths of Muslims in rioting last month in the country’s northeast, police said.

Police fired guns into the air and used bamboo batons to disperse the protesters, who threw rocks and damaged about a dozen buses and police vans.

Police Commissioner Arup Patnaik said two protesters died from injuries sustained in the clashes, but had not been shot. Another 52 people, including 44 police officers, were injured in the clashes, he said.

He said the protesters also burned three TV broadcasting vans, complaining that media coverage of last month’s rioting in Assam state was biased against the Muslim victims.

The rioting between ethnic Bodos and Muslim settlers mainly involved land rights. At least 53 people died and about 400,000 were forced to flee their homes and take shelter in government-run relief camps.

The rioting now is mostly under control.

The Bodos and the Muslim settlers, who mostly came from the former East Pakistan before it became Bangladesh in 1971, have clashed repeatedly over the years but the recent violence is the worst since the mid-1990s.

12:12ET 11-08-12