Source: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-India-Hindu-Riots.html
Two Killed in Religious Riots in India
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 5:33 p.m. ET
BHOPAL, India (AP) – Religious rioting left two people dead in central India on Thursday after Hindu extremists stormed an ancient monument they say is a temple but Muslims consider a mosque.
One of the dead was a Muslim who was attacked by Hindus in Charawat village in Madhya Pradesh state, police said. In nearby Anjhera, police opened fire on a crowd setting fire to a Muslim-owned shop, killing a Hindu farmer participating in the attack, police said.
Earlier Thursday, Hindus burned buses in four central Indian towns after police stopped hard-liners from storming centuries-old Bhojshala monument.
Muslims pray at the monument weekly and authorities allow Hindus to pray there only once a year. Hindus want more frequent access.
On Tuesday, police used tear gas to disperse rioters and arrested 150 people when they tried to storm the monument.
The monument is in the town of Dhar, about 170 miles south of Bhopal, capital of Madhya Pradesh state.
The violence appeared to be part of a buildup of pressure by Hindu nationalists ahead of a ``religious senate’’ this weekend in New Delhi, when they plan to press for the building of a Hindu temple on the site of the former Babri Mosque in Ayodhya in northern India.
The razing of the 16th-century mosque by Hindus in 1992 led to nationwide riots that killed 2,000. When the Hindu nationalist groups began similar pressure last February, riots erupted across western Gujarat state in which at least 1,000 people were killed, most of them Muslims.
The mosque was built on the site where some Hindus say Lord Rama, one of the most revered deities in Hinduism, was born. Muslims, who make up more than 10 percent of India’s 1 billion people, want the mosque rebuilt.
