NEW DELHI: Authorities deployed hundreds of riot police and cut mobile internet services in parts of eastern India on Sunday after violent clashes erupted in at least eight states during a Hindu religious festival.

Police said one person was shot dead in the Nalanda district of Bihar state on Saturday after majority Hindus and minority Muslims clashed in the town of Biharsharif.

This came a day after mobs fought running battles and set fire to homes and shops during at times frenzied public celebrations of Ram Navami.

Hindu festivals regularly feature hundreds of people — sometimes brandishing swords, guns and tridents — provocatively marching through Muslim neighbourhoods with religious music pulsating through powerful sound systems.

Biharsharif police chief Shibli Nomani said nearly 100 people have been detained over violence that erupted on Thursday when thousands of Hindus rallied on the streets and paraded through Muslim-dominated areas.

“The situation is under control. We are patrolling the area and ensuring no gatherings are allowed,” he told AFP, adding that the unrest was being investigated.

Bihar Police on Sunday tweeted that 77 people have been arrested in connection with the communal violence.

India’s Home Minister and a central leader of the ruling BJP Amit Shah has severely criticised the Bihar government over its failure to control the violence and vowed to “hang rioters upside down”.

Addressing a rally in Bihar’s Nawada district, Shah said rioters have had a free run in Sasaram and Bihar Sharif, India TV reported.

Shah was on a two-day visit to Bihar where state elections are due in 2025.

“I urge you to give us a complete majority 40 out of 40 seats in the 2024 [Lok Sabha] elections, and to elect a BJP government [in the state] in 2025,” he said, according to Scroll.in.

“The BJP will hang these rioters upside down and set them straight.”

Similar communal flare-ups were reported in two other cities in Bihar, where authorities shut mobile internet services in some areas and clamped down on public movement.

In Rohtas, another district hit by violence where police arrested dozens, six people were injured in an explosion inside a house where two men were allegedly making a bomb.

Bihar police tweeted that at first glance it did not appear that the blast was related to the recent unrest. Homemade explosives are sometimes used in mining in the area.

Sectarian violence also hit seven other states in recent days following the Hindu festival on Thursday, with dozens injured and hundreds arrested in at least 13 towns and cities.

This included Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and the Howrah region of the eastern state of West Bengal where mobs rampaged and torched vehicles and shops on Thursday.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee accused Bharatiya Janata Party of orchestrating the violence. The BJP accused her of targeting Hindus.