Two students were yesterday feared dead after a violent clash between Muslims and Christians erupted on Tuesday night at the Federal Government Girls' College, Kazaure in Jigawa State, when the Muslim students accused Christian students of blasphemy against Prophet Mohammed, the holy prophet of Islam.

Witnesses in Kazaure told Daily Trust that the alleged abuse of the holy prophet by a Christian student (names withheld) sparked the violence which eventually lasted for hours in the school's premises and later spread into Kazaure town.

The clash was said to have started as a disagreement between friends but led to a breakdown of law and order which spread as rumours filtered into the town and was escalated by clashes in the town between adherents of the two religions leading to destruction of property as buildings, including government offices were torched.

Precise casualty figures could not be obtained but the police took control of the town last night although many persons from the school and the town were suspected to have sustained injuries in the fracas.

Daily Trust confirmed from hospital sources that many believed to have been affected by the violence were lying critically ill in the hospital, some of who were believed to have been shot by the police while attempting to quell the violence.

Information at the Jigawa State police command in Dutse confirmed the incident, but all available policemen, including the state's commissioner of police and other principal officers, were said to have been drafted to the scene of the violence in Kazaure.

When Daily Trust phoned the area command in Kazaure, a police corporal who would not give his name, said that many people have been arrested and are being held at the Kazaure area office of the police.

Many of the residents were said to be taking refuge in various police barracks, offices and schools, but some were said to have fled Kazaure by yesterday evening, and although the police commissioner, Alhaji Saleh Abubakar Ningi, was said to be away to Kazaure, a reliable source in his office said that the situation had been brought under control.

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