Home minister visits attack site

58 people were killed in the train attack

GODHRA, India (CNN) -- India's home minister L.K. Advani on Sunday visited the sight of a train attack that touched off days of religious riots in Gujarat state, blamed for at least 289 deaths.

Advani stepped aboard the burned remains of a train coach, where 58 people died -- mostly Hindu activists -- when a mob of suspected Muslims firebombed the train Wednesday.

He promised the situation was under control.

"When a holocaust of this kind happens as it has over the past five days, obviously people will be scared and it is our job as the administration to reassure them," he said.

Mobs of Hindus and Muslims laid siege to the state's commercial capital, Ahmedabad, and other parts of Gujarat, in violence sparked by the deadly train attack.

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About 3,000 soldiers are patrolling the streets of Gujarat to help police maintain order.

Advani said reports of violence have decreased over the past 24 hours, but some of the fighting has spread in rural areas of Gujarat.

The home minister is expected to leave for Ahmedabad later Sunday where he will meet with state officials in order to review the law and order situation there.

The Hindu activists on board the train were returning from the central Indian town of Ayodhya, where they were demanding that the Indian government build a Hindu temple on the ruins of a mosque, destroyed by Hindus nearly a decade ago.

The act sparked nationwide riots in 1992 and has been blamed for thousands of deaths.

-- From CNN Producer Suhasini Haidar