Updated at 11:45 p.m. EST on 2013-03-20
Authorities have imposed a curfew in central Burma's Meikhtila city after two people were killed and 20 others injured in communal violence triggered by a quarrel in a Muslim goldsmith's shop in the city's main bazaar, according to police and hospital sources.
Several shops in the bazaar were destroyed or burned down in the riots believed to involve hundreds of Buddhist and Muslim residents in the city, located on the banks of Lake Meikhtila in Mandalay division, the sources said.
A 26-year-old male driver, identified as Than Myint Naing, and an unidentified monk were confirmed dead in the clashes, which broke out around 10:00 a.m. in the goldsmith shop, a city police officer told RFA's Burmese Service.
Police said at least one mosque and an Islamic school were destroyed in the violence, some of the worst since ethnic clashes last year between Rohingya Muslims and Buddhist Rakhines in Rakhine state left at least 180 dead and thousands homeless.
President Thein Sein's administration ordered police and other security reinforcements on Wednesday to maintain order and prevent the spread of the clashes to other areas, sources said.
Leading monks from Mandalay and Sagain as well as local nongovernmental groups from Rangoon had also gone to the area to help ease tensions.
The violence stemmed from a quarrel between the owner of the goldsmith shop and a villager and his wife who had gone there to sell a gold hair pin, a police source said.
An argument broke out when the item was purportedly damaged as it was being authenticated by the goldsmith. The two sides began to haggle over the price to be offered for the item and the situation became tense and people in the shop beat the customers, causing an uproar in the bazaar, the source said.
When the villager was wounded, his sympathizers burned the goldsmith shop, according to the source.
No prompt action
Riot police were at the scene but did not take prompt action to contain the violence, one nongovernmental organization leader said, citing witnesses.
"According to witnesses, riot police just stood by as the clashes took place," said Min Ko Naing, a member of the 88 Generation democracy movement.
He wondered whether some officials in charge of security turned a blind eye to the clashes in an attempt to create disorder and pave the way for a return to military rule.
"I guess there are people who do not want to see stability. We cannot afford to have military rule again," he said, referring to the decades of harsh rule under the previous military junta, which gave up power two years ago to the nominally civilian government of President Thein Sein.
Last month, an angry Buddhist mob attacked a Muslim school and shops in a suburb outside Rangoon. The attacks were triggered by reports that the Muslim school in Manpye quarter in Thaketa township was being extended to a prayer house despite objections from the predominantly Buddhist residents.
The worst communal violence in recent years occurred in Rakhine state in June and October last year, leaving at least 180 people dead and thousands homeless, the vast majority of whom were Muslim Rohingya.
Reported by RFA's Burmese Service. Translated by Khin Maung Soe. Written in English by Parameswaran Ponnudurai.