Hindus India

In India's latest collision of the sadly familiar and the new, a dispute between Hindus and Muslims over language has led to riots, arson and the deaths of 17 people in the country's fast-growing capital of high tech, officials said. The spark for two days of turmoil in Bangalore, India's version of Silicon Valley and home to branch offices of many U.S.

With about 85,000 police and paramilitary troops searching vehicles and manning barricades, India's capital appeared under virtual siege early today as the city braced for a huge demonstration by Hindu fundamentalists in defiance of a government ban.

Police have detained more than 27,000 rightists nationwide to prevent them from attending a banned Hindu nationalist rally, and a right-wing party said Tuesday that it will sue the Indian government. The government fears that the rally, called for Thursday in a New Delhi park, will trigger Hindu-Muslim riots. More than 1,800 people died in two months of riots after Hindu zealots destroyed a mosque in northern India in December.

"Let it burn," a voice from the police control room told a street patrol as a Muslim shop went up in flames. But don't torch Hindu property, came the order. That and other secretly taped police dispatches are at the heart of a court battle between police and a human rights group that accused police of taking part in last month's Hindu riots against Muslims.

Mobs of Hindus and Muslims fought each other in the capital Wednesday, and at least two people were killed in the new outburst of ethnic violence. Dozens of shops were burned. Police said 12 people were wounded in the rioting, which occurred in Old Delhi, a crowded business district dominated by Muslims. Thousands of steel-helmeted policemen fanned out across Old Delhi's narrow streets and imposed a curfew. Fifteen fire trucks put out dozens of blazes. Meanwhile, Russian President Boris N.

As calm returned to Bombay, the government announced Saturday that it will order an investigation of Hindu-Muslim rioting that erupted earlier this month, claiming more than 500 lives. Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao also prepared to reshuffle his Cabinet and accepted the resignation of all 59 ministers Saturday, according to ministers who asked not to be identified. They said the embattled Rao asked for and received the resignations at a dinner he hosted for the ministers at his residence.

Army units Tuesday tightened their grip on Bombay to try to halt what one newspaper described as a virtual pogrom against Muslims, but police said at least 14 more people died in fresh clashes across the city. Police opened fire in 12 places to suppress new outbreaks of rioting and arson, and Bombay remained tense after weeklong Hindu-Muslim clashes that have paralyzed the city of 12 million people, India's business capital. Many streets were deserted.

Hindu-Muslim bloodshed spread to new parts of Bombay on Saturday as rioters fought gun battles with police and burned shops and cars, taking the death toll in four days of clashes in India's business capital to 90, police said. At least 20 people were killed Saturday as shops, a cinema and homes were set ablaze. Rioters pelted fire engines with stones and gasoline bombs to try to stop them from putting out scores of fires.

At least 29 people were killed Friday in a renewed upsurge of communal bloodshed in the western Indian cities of Bombay and Ahmedabad, police said. At least 17 people died in Bombay when rival Hindu and Muslim gangs set fire to hundreds of shanty huts. Eight people were burned alive after mobs set their houses ablaze. Violence also flared in other parts of Bombay, India's biggest city and main commercial center, taking the death toll in three days of communal bloodletting to 30, police said.

The Indian government has decided to buy the site of a Muslim mosque destroyed by militant Hindus and build a mosque and a Hindu temple there, an official spokesman said Sunday. The demolition of the mosque in the northern town of Ayodhya by Hindu militants earlier this month triggered a wave of sectarian violence across India. More than 1,100 people died in the violence. The spokesman said that the decision was made at a Cabinet meeting under the chairmanship of Prime Minister P. V.