Gujarat remains tense after caste violence

Tension prevails in India's Gujarat state where two days of caste-related violence has left eight people dead. Fresh clashes were reported overnight and the army has been deployed to maintain peace.

A curfew has been imposed, after members of the influential Patel community, demanding quotas in government jobs, clashed with the police and local people. PM Narendra Modi has urged the people of his home state to maintain peace.

The main city of Ahmedabad was calm yesterday and shops and businesses were beginning to reopen in some areas, the AFP news agency reported.

Rahul Gandhi yesterday targeted Modi over the violence in Gujarat during quota agitation by Patels, saying it was a repercussion of the "politics of anger" pursued by Modi .

"Our Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi is doing politics of anger and such politics has repercussions for the country which you are seeing in Gujarat," the Congress vice-president, who is on a three-day visit to Jammu and Kashmir, told reporters after addressing a farmers' rally at a village in Pampore town.

Rahul said the "politics of anger has only benefited Modi".

The BBC Hindi's Ankur Jain in Ahmedabad says overnight clashes between the police and protesters were reported from Surat, Vapi and Rajkot. A policeman who was injured in the clashes in Surat died in hospital late on Wednesday.

Clashes broke out late on Tuesday when police briefly detained the protesters' firebrand leader Hardik Patel, who had hours earlier led a massive rally in Ahmedabad.

Eight people, including a policeman and a father and son, have been killed in the violence and at least a dozen policemen injured. About 40 police stations and 70 buses have been set ablaze.