At least 20 people were injured in clashes with police in eastern India on Friday in protests over attacks on migrants in the financial hub of Mumbai, police said. Protesters blocked roads, smashed cars and burnt tyres in the eastern state of Bihar, as police struggled to control street violence for a fifth day in a row. Migrant workers from Bihar said they were attacked and thrown out of Mumbai over the last week by supporters of the Maharashtra Navanirman Sena (MNS), a militant Hindu group. The MNS is fuelling anti-immigrant rhetoric ahead of national and local elections due next year and trying to hold on to its Marathi votebank, some political commentators say. That in turn has provoked tit-for-tat violence in northern and eastern India, a sign of the strains that inequality is placing on society as parts of the country's economy booms. In Patna, Bihar's state capital, the protesters, mostly students who were barred by MNS from taking job interviews and tests, threw stones at police.
