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AHMEDABAD, March 19 (Reuters) - Vacant, unblinking eyes stare from haunted faces as traumatised Muslim women mourn husbands and children slaughtered in religious riots that ravaged the western Indian state of Gujarat nearly three weeks ago.

But once the words start tumbling out there's no stopping the pain -- and the tears.

In the state's commercial hub, Ahmedabad, four-year-old Gazala dressed in a muddied lacy pink dress clutched a plastic doll as she watched her mother Mehboob Bibi Yunus struggling to speak. "I -- my," was all the distraught Yunus could whisper.

The next day she was more composed. "My heart is bursting. My grief is beyond limit," said the 25-year-old sitting with her head covered in an overcrowded relief camp in a Muslim quarter of the historic city which continues to simmer with communal hatred.

"A huge mob of Hindu men armed with swords, sticks, petrol cans attacked our area. We all ran but my husband was left behind when he tried to help my mother. The mob caught him and set him on fire."

Still dazed by the attacks in which their husbands and children were burnt, stabbed or shot to death, hundreds of Muslim women like Yunus are huddled in relief camps across Gujarat where 694 people perished in the riots.

The violence erupted in revenge for the burning alive of 58 Hindus in a train returning from the northern Indian temple town of Ayodhya where a plot of land sacred to both communities has led to bloody riots over the years.

Belonging to a traditionally conservative society in which men are the sole breadwinners, the majority of these Muslim women have never stepped out of their homes to earn a living. Mostly illiterate and with no means of support, they must recover from the horror of what they saw before thinking of the future.

"I can't think straight. I have no peace in the day. I can't sleep at night," said Yunus who saw the mob hack off her mother's arms before setting her on fire.

"My younger sister Saeeda Bano was raped and burnt. They did not spare even her eight-year old daughter," she said, breaking into sobs. "She was also raped and burnt."

Witnesses say police did nothing to stop the mobs who came armed with swords, kerosene cans, petrol bombs and iron bars and opposition politicians have accused authorities of being slow to call in the army to control the rioters.

But Gujarat's state government led by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, the same group which heads the federal ruling coalition, said it did all it could to stop the mobs.

Yunus watched the carnage hiding for over seven hours in an adjacent building with her daughter and a group of people who had escaped, before being taken to the relief camp.

Women who saw children set alight are among the worst affected in camps. "My daughter, her three-year old daughter and three-month-old son were all set on fire," said Lalbibi Ghulamrasool dry-eyed, looking like a zombie.

Along with the houses that were looted and set on fire, many Muslim victims of the riots have lost all their savings too.

"We believed our money was not safe in banks so all of us kept it at home. I had 12,00 rupees under the mattress and my husband had kept nearly 80,000 Indian rupees ($1,643) in a locker at home," said Shaheen-Bano Hassan, 22, a mother of three, who said her husband was killed by police bullets near a mosque.

With her house and a thriving butcher shop in Ahmedabad's Hussain Nagar burned down, Hassan is fearful about the future.

Authorities say the Muslims were killed by police accidentally in their attempt to quell the violence but some Muslims accuse the police of deliberately firing on them.

"The figures tell a tale. In Ahmedabad, 23 Muslims and 17 Hindus were killed in police firing in the first few days of the riots," a senior police officer, who did not wish to be named, told Reuters.

WON'T WORK OUTSIDE

Yunus's husband who ran a garage supported his family. "I've never stepped out of my house to work and I won't do it now. Women don't do that in our community," she said firmly.

It is a view echoed by most widows in camps across the city. They admit they have to support and educate surviving children but insist they will not go out to work. Some plan to work from home while others hope for help from the government.

Though a large number of Muslim widows found their way to city relief camps, which voluntary agencies say housed nearly 60,000, some stayed with relatives. Their options are no better.

"I get food sent to me from a relief camp but I can't stay on here," said Shameem Bano Alladdin in a relative's house with her two sons. The eight-month pregnant Alladdin's husband was also killed in police firing during the riots in Gayatri Nagar.

State officials say emergency relief measures are immediate priorities with monetary packages also being worked out.

"For Muslim widows it's a matter of keeping body and soul together. They don't feel safe going back to their areas. But rehabilitation is a long-term process and the government will include livelihood packages," C.K. Koshy, a senior government official responsible for relief and rehabilitation, told Reuters.

But financial aid should be coupled with counselling, said Gujarat University sociology lecturer, Gaurang Jani. "This kind of communal hatred...will take a long time to remove," he said. 

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