NEW DELHI: The U.N. human rights chief urged India Monday to counter suspicion against its Muslim minority following the Mumbai attacks and warned the country's strict anti-terror measures threatened human rights.India is still on edge after gunmen killed 166 people in a three-day rampage on the financial hub last November.Hundreds of Muslims were detained and questioned over the attacks, angering rights activists who said innocent people were caught up in the backlash."The horrific terrorist attack in Mumbai has also polarized society and risks stoking suspicions against the Muslim community," said U.N Human Rights chief Navanethem Pillay."Both internal and external terrorist threats have led to counter-terrorist measures that put human rights at risk," Pillay said in New Delhi during her India visit.Religious and caste-based prejudices remain entrenched in Indian society, she said.Secular India has a long history of tensions between its majority Hindus and minority Muslims that have exploded in deadly violence. More than 2,000 people, mainly Muslims, were killed in communal riots in Gujarat state in 2002.
Friday, August 14, 2009 MUMBAI: A 26-year-old woman died Thursday of H1N1 swine flu in the southern city of Bangalore, raising India's death toll from the virus to 20, authorities said.The death was the first reported in India's information technology capital, the Press Trust of India reported.Meanwhile in Pune, the worst-affected in India, two more victims of the virus died Thursday, raising the death toll in that western city near Mumbai to 12, the report said. The victims were an 11-month-old boy and a 75-year-old old woman.US media reported movie halls, schools and colleges were ordered closed Thursday for three days to a week in Mumbai, the commercial and financial capital of the country, as fear of the pandemic spread.Prajakata Lavangare, a spokeswoman for the government of Maharashtra state of which Mumbai is the capital, said similar orders were issued in Pune, which is also located in the state.The woman who died in Bangalore was identified only as Roopa, a teacher in
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