AHMADABAD, India (AP) – Hindu nationalists set fire to a PepsiCo warehouse in western India on Saturday to protest the U.S. denial of a visa for a top state official due to his role in religious riots in 2002.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh asked the U.S. government to urgently reconsider its decision.

The State Department said Friday it had denied a diplomatic visa to the Hindu nationalist chief minister of Gujarat state, Narendra Modi, and revoked his existing tourist/business visa under the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act that bars people responsible for violations of religious freedom from getting a visa.

Nearly 150 activists barged into the warehouse of U.S.-based PepsiCo in the western city of Surat, smashed bottles and set fire to the place, said Dharmesh Joshi, a witness. Police confirmed the attack.

The warehouse was partially burned. The demonstrators were from the Bajrang Dal, a group affiliated with Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, which governs Gujarat state.

The State Department had no immediate comment, spokesman Noel Clay said Saturday in Washington.

A witness said about a dozen workers at the warehouse fled during the attack and firefighters doused the flames.

The protesters also ransacked a nearby PepsiCo office and demonstrated outside the American consulate in Bombay. PepsiCo representatives could not be reached for comment.

Some carried placards reading: “Down with the United States,” “Boycott the U.S. goods and the Americans.”

The attacks came despite a tightening of security in western India where Hindu nationalists have a strong presence, to prevent retaliation to the U.S. decision.

The State Department said Modi was denied a visa in response to a finding by India’s National Human Rights Commission that held his state government responsible for the 2002 Hindu-Muslim violence in the state, India’s worst in a decade.

Human rights groups have accused the state government of doing little to stop the violence that killed 1,000 people, most of them Muslims.

Up to 150 Bajrang Dal activists also tried to enter the U.S. visa application center in Ahmadabad, the main Gujarat city but were turned back by police.

The Indian prime minister said the U.S. government had been clearly told of his nation’s concern at the visa denial.

“We have also called for the urgent reconsideration of decision by the U.S. government,” Singh said in a statement in India’s parliament.

The decision, he said, showed a lack of sensitivity and courtesy to an elected authority.

Modi, who had been scheduled to address an association of motel owners in New York and to meet with Indians living in several U.S. cities, has called the decision an insult to India.

In Ahmadabad, Suleiman Shaikh, a Muslim who had lost his wife and two children in the 2002 rioting, welcomed the decision.

“While the Indian judiciary system is yet to prosecute Modi and his men responsible for the killing of innocent Muslims, the U.S. decision comes as an indication of how Modi was being dealt with internationally,” Shaikh told The Associated Press.