Two people were killed and six injured when police fired at a mob setting Muslim homes on fire in an upsurge of religious violence in the west Indian state of Gujarat where 700 people have died in recent clashes.

A state police official said curfew had been imposed in Panvad village, some 60 miles from the state’s main city of Ahmedabad, after Sunday night’s violence.

Dozens of Hindi hard-liners were defying a ban on congregations of more than four people. The ban was imposed after more than 700 people were killed in Hindu-Muslim clashes earlier this month.

On Feb. 27, Hindi mobs rampaged though the city of Ahmedabad in western India, killing more than 600 people as they burned and destroyed Muslim homes, shops, cars, and restaurants. This particular attack was in retaliation to a Muslim mob attack on the compartment of a train that was carrying Hindi fundamentalists and their families back from a site on which they planned to erect a temple. The car of the train was set aflame, and 58 men, women and children died.

Hard-line Hindus believe the 16th-century Babri mosque was built by Muslim Moghul invaders on the birthplace of Hindi god-king Ram and see the temple as a means of setting right the insult they believe their religion suffered at the time.

On December 6, 1992, this mosque was demolished by a group of fervent Hindus, leaving riots that killed more than 1000 people across India.

Dr. Velcheru Narayana Rao, a professor in the UW-Madison department of Languages and Cultures of Asia, said differing religious beliefs between the Hindus and Muslims have led to biased political decisions in the region.

?We have to wait for the report of the judicial inquiry to know the facts. It is all too easy to ignite emotions on rumor and legend,” he said. “Unfortunately, national leadership has not been firm on keeping religion out of politics. A false sense of identity based on religion is being built by mass propaganda.”

UW-Madison business graduate-student Sharib Ahroon said though religious violence is a long-standing trend in India, he thinks poor political decisions amplify conflict.

?India has seen this violence before, and the administration anticipated it after the initial attack on the train,” Ahroon said.” But the police did nothing the first two days of the attacks.?

Also, Muslim leaders meeting in New Delhi Sunday rejected a proposal to allow the World Hindu Council to hold a prayer service near the disputed site on March 15.

“The Babri Masjid [mosque] site is not to be sold, gifted or bargained,” Syed Shahabuddin, a member of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board, was quoted as saying afterward by the Press Trust of India news agency.

Hindi hard-liners had initially planned to begin construction of the temple on the mosque site on March 15 but have since said they will wait for the Supreme Court to rule on the dispute.

Thousands of police and paramilitary troops are guarding Ayodhya, 345 miles east of New Delhi, to prevent further religious clashes.

Professor Mohammad Memon, UW Islamic studies professor, said police forces may not be effective.

?Frankly, I’m very pessimistic about the ability, and even more the desire, of the police to contain the massacre of innocent civilians,” Memon said. “It is no longer a secret that often the police have just stood by and let the worst happen.”

Students seem to share the same idea; Dhaval Gupta, an Indian international student, said though recent battles have been some of the bloodiest in the decade, he has observed a gradual decline in the violence in northern India.

?Riots and tension are going down slowly,” Gupta said.

Regardless of escalation or possible decline of tensions, UW Languages and Cultures of Asia professor Aparna Dharwadker said the deep roots of the conflict ensure it will be a difficult one for politicians to mend.

?Perhaps the most important aspect of the present incidents is that their origins lie in numerous political developments of the 1980s and 1990s: the rise of fundamentalism as a political platform among both Hindus and Muslims.”

?Reuters contributed to this report.