Ahmadabad, India ? Mob burnings, shootings and other violence between Hindus and Muslims spread through villages in India’s Gujarat state Saturday even as soldiers enforced a fearful peace in larger cities.

The death toll in India’s worst religious strife in a decade stood at 415 after police said Hindus stormed the village of Sardarpura and set houses and shops ablaze by lighting fires near cooking gas containers. Twenty-seven Muslims died, police officials said on condition of anonymity.

In the town of Vadodra, at least seven Muslims were burned to death inside the bakery where they worked. In Himmatnagar, police fired on Hindu and Muslim groups fighting each other with guns and knives, resulting in 11 deaths, police said.

“The violence is spreading from village to village. If nothing is done to stop it, God knows what will happen to thousands and thousands of people,” said Asad Madhani, president of the Jamiat-ul Ulema-e-Hind, an association of Muslim clerics.

Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee appealed for peace and restraint Saturday in a TV address. It was the second appeal in four days from Vajpayee.

President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan, India’s longtime rival and a Muslim-majority country, called for better protection of India’s Muslim minority. “The carnage must be brought to an end,” he said in a written statement.

In Ahmadabad, the state’s commercial capital and the worst-hit city, Muslims and Hindus warily wandered their neighborhoods to survey the damage. Charred bodies lay in the streets along with burned furniture and vehicles.

The violence is the worst in India since 1993, when 800 people were killed during Hindu-Muslim riots in Bombay. Outside Gujarat state, the country remained relatively calm.

The bloodshed began Wednesday when Muslims burned a train carrying Hindus returning from the northern town of Ayodhya, where a temple is planned on the site of a 16th-century mosque that was razed by Hindus in 1992. The temple plans have long been a cause of Hindu-Muslim tension.

The federal government has been criticized for not reacting sooner to calm the politically powerful World Hindu Council, which is spearheading the temple campaign.