India arrests 140 for Hindu-Muslim clashes as PM Modi tours U.S.

Police in western India have arrested 140 people after two men were stabbed during violence between Hindus and Muslims that left more than a dozen injured and was triggered by an image posted on Facebook, officials said on Monday.

The violence in the state of Gujarat coincides with a visit to the United States by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is set to meet President Barack Obama later on Monday on a trip emphasizing India's economic potential.

For almost a decade Modi was unwelcome in the United States after Washington revoked his visa in 2005 over accusations of religious intolerance stemming from riots three years earlier in Gujarat, when he was the state's chief minister.

Gujarat's government deployed riot police to control the clashes in the city of Vadodara over the weekend and appealed to religious leaders to intervene to curb them. Mobile telephone Internet and bulk text messaging has been suspended for four days as a precautionary step.

"We arrested 140 people on Sunday evening after two men were stabbed," the city's police commissioner, E. Radhakrishnan, said. "The injured are under medical observation and those who have been arrested are being interrogated."

Trouble was sparked by an image widely distributed on social media website Facebook that some Muslims considered offensive to Islam, said a senior administration official in the city.

India has a dark history of religious violence, especially between the Hindu majority and Muslims, who account for more than 150 million people, making India the world's third most populous Muslim nation.

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India, Hindus, Muslims, Gujarat, Narendra Modi, Barack Obama, Internet

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