HYDERABAD, India: Indian police on Tuesday imposed a curfew across a third of the southern city of Hyderabad, home to global IT giants Google and Microsoft, after days of inter-religious clashes.
At least one man died in street battles between Hindu and Muslim mobs during violence triggered by arguments over putting up decorations for a religious festival, Hyderabad Police Superintendent AK Khan told AFP.
He said the victim, a Hindu youth, was stabbed to death on Monday and scores of people had been injured. “We have imposed a curfew on parts of the city because we did not want the situation to escalate,” Khan said.
Violence spread over the weekend through the Muslim-dominated “old city” of Hyderabad with crowds pelting stones at each other near the tourist landmark of the Charminar mosque. Five smaller mosques and one Hindu temple were slightly damaged, police said, as shops, buses and cars were set on fire. Hyderabad, a city of eight million people, has attracted major investment from global information technology and pharmaceuticals firms, and is a symbol of India’s emerging economy.
But it has also suffered from historically deep communal tension and growing unrest over the proposed division of Andhra Pradesh state into two entities — an issue that has also led police to impose curfews in recent months. Frequent strikes and road and rail blockades in the city, which is the state capital of Andhra Pradesh, have caused widespread disruption to business over the last year. Analysts say the turmoil has created a sense of uncertainty among investors, though social networking group Facebook chose Hyderabad earlier this month for its first office in India.
About 2,000 extra security personnel were sent to reinforce the city’s police on Tuesday as Hindus marked a festival celebrating the birth of the Hindu monkey god Hanuman. Many shops and offices were closed and the streets were quiet as residents stayed indoors. At least 100 suspected rioters have been detained.
Police patrolled in large numbers through the city’s troubled areas, which remained calm during the day. “The curfew will remain in force till the situation is brought to normalcy,” said Sabita Indra Reddy, home minister of Andhra Pradesh.
The modern parts of Hyderabad where the multinational companies are based were unaffected by the unrest. Hyderabad’s star rose during the 1990s as India established itself as an IT outsourcing destination offering low-cost services to multinational companies for a fraction of the cost in their domestic markets.
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