Jefri had fired a gun in the air, trying to disperse the crowd of around 200 Hindus who had gathered around the bungalows. Instead, the crowd swelled to more than 2,000 and attacked.
Gujarat Chief Minister Modi had earlier said 20 others were killed throughout the state, including two people shot by police who opened fire on rioters in the towns of Nadiad and Godhra. The circumstances of the other deaths was not clear.
Rioters blocked roads in Ahmadabad - in one instance, dragging a truck driver from his vehicle and killing him, police said. Police fired rifles at a crowd, injuring six people, hospital officials said. But elsewhere in the city, police stood watching for hours or occasionally fired tear gas as gangs burned hotels, gas stations, cars, restaurants and shops, making bonfires of looted goods.
On the highways elsewhere in the state, young men with sticks and iron rods stopped cars, looking for Muslims. Roadside tea and tobacco stalls owned by Muslims were burned to the ground.
In three towns, seven Muslims were stabbed to death overnight.
The nationalist World Hindu Council called for a strike that was in effect Thursday in Gujarat to be expanded nationwide Friday to protest the train attack. The state government, run by the Hindu nationalist party of Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, had supported the Thursday strike.
Police said 63 people, including two municipal councilors in Godhra, had been arrested on murder charges in the train attack.
Modi, a member of the prime minister's Bharatiya Janata Party, called the train burning an ''organized terrorist attack'' and said steps would be taken ''so that no one dare repeat such a thing in future.''
He insisted that, despite retaliation attacks, the reaction by Hindus ''is that of restraint compared to what the terrorists did in Godhra.''
Tension had been building for the past five days in Godhra and other towns in Gujarat, said police chief Raju Bhargava. Hindu nationalists travel by train across Gujarat to and from a religious site in Ayodhya, in northern India, where the World Hindu Council vows to build a temple to the Hindu god Rama on the ruins of the 16th century Muslim mosque. Hindus tore down the mosque in 1992, sparking nationwide riots that killed 2,000 people.
Bhargava said the Hindu activists often refused to pay for food taken from Muslim vendors at the stations, and brandished sticks as they shouted slogans, causing resentment and anger to build up.
The Hindu Council rejected Vajpayee's plea Wednesday to help keep peace by dropping the plan to erect the Rama temple, beginning March 15, in defiance of court orders. Vajpayee has strongly supported the temple construction, but said the government opposes it being done by force.
The passengers of the attacked train had been returning from a religious ceremony at Ayodhya, where about 20,000 Hindu activists have gathered, praying and preparing to begin building the temple.
Rajendra Singh, the police superintendent in Uttar Pradesh state, where Ayodhya is located, said 10,000 paramilitary troops would be on duty by Thursday night.
AP-NY-02-28-02 1144EST