NEW DELHI (Agencies): Most mosques were shut for Friday prayers in an important business hub on the outskirts of India’s capital after six people were killed in sectarian riots. Police were deployed in large numbers outside several mosques in Gurugram — a satellite city of New Delhi and a key business centre where Nokia, Samsung and other multinationals have their Indian headquarters.
Tensions have been high in the area since Monday when mobs hurled stones at a Hindu religious procession and set cars alight in the predominantly Muslim district of Nuh nearby. An armed mob then attacked a mosque in Gurugram on early Tuesday, killing a cleric in apparent retaliation, while several shops and small restaurants were vandalised or torched by mobs chanting Hindu religious slogans. No major instances of violence have been reported since Tuesday night.
Some mosques in Gurugram did allow small groups to assemble for Friday afternoon prayers — the most important of the week for Muslims. But five of the city’s main Muslim houses of worship visited by AFP were shut, with their entries heavily barricaded by police. Officers said there was no order from authorities to shut mosques and that local Muslim leaders had appealed to worshippers to pray at home in view of the tensions.
“Police are just ensuring that the security arrangements are proper,” senior police officer Varun Kumar Dahiya told reporters. Around 500,000 Muslims live in Gurugram, which has also been the site of a long-running dispute over access to worship.
