Police clashed with about 250 stone-throwing Moslem fundamentalists who attacked a theater troupe, a security source said Wednesday. One student was killed and four were injured as officers dispersed the crowd. The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the incident took place Tuesday night at the village of Kodeya, 25 miles from the southern provincial capital of Assiut. He said it wasn't known what killed 23-year-old Mohammed Kotb. One of the four wounded students was in critical condition, he added. In a statement read to The Associated Press by telephone, a fundamentalist spokesman claimed the student was killed by police gunfire. ``The Moslem group went out through the village in a peaceful march of protest ... when police attacked them with tear gas and opened fire on the demonstrators, killing the student Mohammed Kotb,'' the statement said. The spokesman, who refused to give his name, said forces then surrounded the village, raided homes and detained fundamentalists. The spokesman said the students were protesting a ``dancing party'' organized by security forces. The security source, however, said the fundamentalists attacked a theater troupe performing a play about Islam and peasants. The troup had been invited to perform by the government's culture club at the village. ``Around 250 Moslem fundamentalists from the village and nearby villages gathered in a mosque after evening prayers and then moved to the hall where the play was being performed, carrying stones and rocks,'' the source said. He said the students, from a teacher training college, ``attacked the hall and tried to destroy the building,'' but security forces surrounded them and used tear gas and sticks to disperse them. He did not say whether police made any arrests. Police forces guarded the building until the play was finished, the source said. The southern Assiut province has been a hotbed of fundamentalist agitation for almost a decade. Fundamentalist students armed with knives, bicycle chains and stones, attacked an Assiut University campus parade on March 7, denouncing it as an anti-Islamic ``dancing and singing party.'' In the ensuing clash with security forces, two students and two policemen were wounded.
