200 Dead In Gujarat Violence

Gujarat chief minister today said that totally 13 columns of the Army have been deployed in Gujarat, including eight in Ahmedabad, two each in Godhra and Vadodara and one in Rajkot. And shoot-at-sight orders have also been issued against those indulging in arson and violence, he added. Speaking to media persons, Modi said that while curfew has been imposed in 26 towns and cities, 136 people have been killed in the state and 43 have been seriously injured. The official toll in Ahmedabad alone is 119, out of which 17 have died in police firing.

However, unconfirmed reports suggest that the toll may have crossed 200. This includes 58 burned alive in Sabarmati Express on Wednesday. which triggered the VHP-sponsored bandh and sparked the bloodshed. The chief minister said 1,137 persons have been arrested since yesterday in connection with the ongoing violence in the state. Police fired 311 rounds and burst 1,087 teargas shells to disperse mobs which resorted to pelting stones at police personnel as well as arson and looting, Modi added. Today morning, fifty eight people were burnt to death in Naroda area, which included eight of a family who were torched in a Sumo on the Ahmedabad-Udaipur highway.

 

Today afternoon, an Handloom exhibition being organised at the Gujarat University ground became the target of miscreants and dozens of stalls set up by co-operatives societies from different states were set on fire and reduced to ashes as security forces simply looked on. While today morning three factories were gutted in Halol town (40 kms from Vadodara), several shops and business establishments, including hotels, restaurants, supermarkets and showrooms, have been looted, ransacked and burnt down in different parts of Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Rajkot, Bharuch, etc.

Most of them are reported to belong to the Muslim community. In Ahmedabad, while the Adani Group