AHMEDABAD: Riot police patrolled a port town in Gujarat on Tuesday a day after two people were killed in Hindu-Muslim clashes that began when a Muslim boy was beaten up for teasing a Hindu girl.

A 24-hour curfew was partially relaxed on Tuesday in Veraval town in western India's Gujarat state, after police and paramilitary reinforcements managed to on late Monday to bring the situation under control, an officer said.

Businesses and schools were shut and authorities enforced a curfew in Veraval where Hindus and Muslims attacked each other with stones and torched dozens of shops and houses.

A Muslim boy was stabbed to death while a Hindu youth died late on Monday in police firing, a government official said. More than a dozen people were also injured in the clashes.

"The town is still tense. We are not relaxing the curfew as it could lead to a flare-up of violence again," a senior police official told Reuters.

Gujarat has suffered sporadic religious clashes since 2002, when India's worst religious riots in nearly a decade killed more than 1,000 people, most of them Muslims.

The riots flared after a suspected Muslim mob set fire to a train and burnt alive 59 Hindus. Non-government groups put the toll in that violence at more than 2,500.

After Monday's clashes, police arrested more than two dozen people on charges of rioting and arson in Veraval, a fishing town of about 165,000 people, 350 km southwest of Ahmedabad.

Authorities have also called a meeting of religious and business leaders in Veraval to appeal for peace.

"We may relax the curfew for a few hours for women and children later in the day depending on the situation," R K Pathak, a senior government official, said.