NEW DELHI, India -- Police with emergency powers to search and arrest people without warrants patrolled the Punjab today in the wake of escalating religious violence that left at least 11 people dead in two days.
Authorities in New Delhi and neighboring Haryana state tightened security today to maintain order during a general strike called to protest the violence and rioting in the northern Punjab.
In New Delhi police with night sticks charged a thousands of stone-throwing Indians who tried toenforce the strike by deflating the tires on public buses. No injuries were reported.
The strike was also observed today in parts of Kashmir state but protests were reported peaceful.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), a major Hindu-backed opposition group, called the strike after a similar action in Punjab Tuesday that closed 75 percent of the businesses in the state.
Most markets in New Delhi closed today in observance of the strike, but essential services, government offices and banks continued operating, officials said. No violence was reported.
In the Sikh holy city of Amritsar, 225 miles northwest of New Delhi, police patrolled under orders to 'shoot on sight' any lawbreakers. Five cities were under curfew in the northern Punjab, where police patrolled with emergency powers to search or arrest people without warrants.
Among the dead in violence in Amritsar Tuesday were a policeman stabbed with a sword and a fellow officer who was beaten in a clash between 20,000 Hindu and Sikh rioters.
Officials said police and paramilitary troops started shooting on the crowds after they attacked a car carrying the city's police chief, who escaped. At least seven people were killed and scores of others injured in that incident.
Police said the rioters, who looted and set fire to several shops, dispersed after three hours when the Punjab state government issued 'shoot-on-sight' orders.
In the capital, the entire opposition stormed out of Parliament after three hours Tuesday to protest the government's failure to halt the violence.
The killings swelled the death toll to 129 slain since Feb. 14 in terrorist attacks, police shootings and clashes between Hindus and Sikhs.
Most of the killings are blamed on a small band of Sikh terrorists who have been waging a 'holy war' on the federal government for the past 20 months for political, economic and religious autonomy in Punjab, an agriculturally rich area that is home to most of the sect's 12 million members.
Tuesday's rioting was triggered by the assassination of Vishwa Nath Tiwari, a Hindu member of the upper house of Parliament who was shot in his home in the Punjab state capital Chandigarh, 100 miles southwest of Amritsar.
Tiwari, a member of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's ruling Congress Party, had reportedly been on a 'hit list' of Sikh terrorists because he supported the prime minister's hardline stance toward Sikh demands.
It was the second straight day of violence in Amritsar. Rioting destroyed a temple, shops and vehicles Monday after the assassination in Amritsar of Hindu political leader Harbans Lal Khanna.
