Communal violence spread to more towns of the western Gujarat state yesterday as the death toll in India's worst religious strife in a decade reached 408, officials said.

They said the violence continued for a fourth day despite army troops being deployed with orders to shoot-to-kill rioters and curfew being imposed in 37 towns in the state.

Police said fresh rioting and arson was reported in the cities of Surat, Bhavnagar, Vadodra and Ahmedabad, the commercial capital of Gujarat and the worst hit by the mob violence.

In Ahmedabad, mobs set fire to shops in at least three neighborhoods yesterday and prevented fire trucks from approaching, fire brigade officials said.

Thousands of army soldiers tried to control Hindu mobs in Gujarat yesterday.

Police Commissioner PC Pandey insisted,"There were no fresh attacks on Friday night across the state".

The bloodshed was triggered by a Muslim mob burning of a train carrying Hindu Nationalists on Wednesday in Godhra town in the state. Since then, right-wing Hindus have been on a retaliatory rampage in this large western state, burning down Muslim homes while many police and soldiers have stood by watching Muslims, including women and children, burned alive.

The federal government has been heavily criticised for not reacting sooner, though the mass violence did not spread across India, despite a nationwide strike call by the World Hindu Council on Friday.

State government officials, speaking on condition of anonymity,

said the death toll in four days of carnage is 408 including those killed in the train and more than 40 killed in police firing. However, the state police control room put the toll at 383.

It is the worst religious clashes in India since 1993, when 800 people were killed during Hindu-Muslim riots in Bombay.

"It's not a good thing what happened but this chain reaction is normal. Now everybody has to suffer," said Satish Aggarwal, a Hindu who operates a dairy kiosk in the Amdupura neighbourhood of Ahmedabad.

In Ahmedabad, many hotels, shops and restaurants have been destroyed and looting has been widespread. Bodies blackened by fire lay in the streets, along with burned-out furnishings and vehicles, shredded clothes and other personal belongings.

Muslims in many areas said police were favouring Hindus. Muslims streamed into hospitals, for treatment of stab wounds and burns, but also for refuge.