Associated Press Relief workers remove a body from one of the burned cars of a train carrying Hindu activists. The train was set on fire by a Muslim mob in Godhra, India, Wednesday. [Click to enlarge]

Associated Press Fire officials extinguish one of the burned cars of a train carrying Hindu nationalists set on fire by a Muslim mob in Godhra, India, Wednesday. Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee expressed concern over the attack and requested that the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, a Hindu nationalist group, not build a Hindu temple in Ayodhya, India, \"so peace can be obtained.\" [Click to enlarge]

GODHRA, India - Muslim attackers armed with stones and kerosene descended on a train carrying hundreds of Hindu nationalists Wednesday, setting fire to four cars and killing 57 people.

Fourteen of the dead were children and 43 other people were injured, many critically, when a mob attacked the train as it pulled out of Godhra shortly after 6:30 a.m., Gujarat state officials said.

Fearing the attack would ignite sectarian riots, Indian officials immediately stepped up security across this vast, religiously divided nation. The prime minister urged Hindus not to retaliate.

The nationalists belonged to the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, or World Hindu Council, a group seeking to build a temple at the disputed holy site of Ayodhya, in Uttar Pradesh. Ten years ago, fighting between Muslims and Hindus over Ayodhya killed 2,000 people.

Most of the 2,500 Hindu activists on board the Sabarmati Express were returning from Ayodhya and were bound for Ahmadabad, 95 miles to the south.

Smoke was still pouring from the train Wednesday afternoon as relief workers gingerly removed the charred bodies, which were piled on top of one another, their limbs entangled.

State officials and witnesses said the Muslims appeared incensed by Hindu chanting on the railroad platform in Godhra.

The cars they destroyed were detached, and the train continued on to Vadodara, 60 miles to the south. There, one person in a Hindu crowd that had gathered at the station fatally stabbed a man as he got off the train, hospital officials said. Several other people were beaten with sticks, they said.

Later Wednesday in Godhra, a 17-year-old boy was killed when police fired shots and tear gas to disperse mobs looting shops and setting them ablaze, officials said.

Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee called on Hindu nationalists not to retaliate. "We need to protect Indian brotherhood at every cost," said Vajpayee, who canceled a trip to Australia for a Commonwealth summit after the attack.

Uttar Pradesh state officials said 3,000 paramilitary troops were sent to Ayodhya to help police seal off the town. Only residents with passes were allowed in.

Most of Godhra was placed under curfew Wednesday night.

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