The death toll in communal riots in the western Indian state of Gujarat has risen above 600 after police recovered more bodies, police said on Wednesday.
However they said the state, still reeling from India's worst Hindu-Muslim clashes in decade, was mostly peaceful apart from a few isolated incidents.
Authorities, who are pulling charred bodies from the wrecks of homes and shops torched in the riots, recovered 29 bodies overnight, taking the official death toll to 602.
That included 58 people burned to death after a Muslim mob attacked a train carrying Hindu devotees last Wednesday, sparking reprisal killings of Muslims.
"These are all bodies which are being recovered from earlier incidents, some from urban areas and some from rural areas," senior state government official Ashok Narayan told Reuters. "The state is in fact quite peaceful except for some tension in select pockets."
(China Daily March 6, 2002)
