Scores die in India riot

Press, 16 April 1979, Page 8

Scores die in India riot

I NZPA-Reuter New Delhi Troops yesterday patrolled the streets of the riot-torn Indian city of Jamshedpur where up to 100 people have [been killed and 15,000 evacuated in three days of savage [clashes between Hindus and ] Muslims. I A member of the ruling I Janata Party, Mr Ramanand |Tiwari, put the death toll in I India’s worst religious riots I for nine years at more than 1100. but officials said 63 persons had died. Jamshedpur, a northeastern steel city of more than half a million inhabitants, was reported to be quiet but tense. A curfew which was. clamped on the city on Wednesday was relaxed for six hours yesterday to allow people to buy provisions. But few shops were open, and

banks, schools, and hotels remained closed.

The riots were concentratI ed mainly on areas inhabited ( by industrial workers. More . than 15,000. people were ev- , acuated and are being held ] in relief camps under tight , police guard. I News-agency' reports from the city said more than 200 , persons were in hospital, j many with gunshot wounds. ! Hindu-Muslim flare-ups ; are frequent in India, but the ] violence in Jamshedpur is the . worst for many years. Elsewhere in India, the . states of West Bengal and > Bihar are almost paralysed ! by a shortage of electricity , after breakdowns of several 'coal-fuelled generating sta- ; tions. The crisis is nearly' catasr trophic for the 8,300,000 in- ] habitants of Calcutta, who t have electric current only j three or four hours a day.

Electricity is essential for water pumps of apartment

buildings and shantytowns. The latter have only one water tap or well for an average of 400 people, who live in frightful poverty even when the pumps work. Food is rotting in coldstorage rooms deprived of power. Air conditioners and ice-freezing machines are idle, the temperature averaging 34 deg C, and the humidity 90 per cent.

The authorities have ordered shops to close at dusk, just when the falling temperature begins to make shopping bearable.

More than a million workers have been laid off because of government disconnected high-tension lines serving factories.

The daily' loss in output in the unprecedented crisis is estimated at SI33M by the West Bengal Chamber of Commerce.