DAILY NEWS ONLINE


OTHER EDITIONS

Budusarana On-line Edition
Silumina  on-line Edition
Sunday Observer

OTHER LINKS

Marriage Proposals
Classified Ads
Government - Gazette
Mihintalava - The Birthplace of Sri Lankan Buddhist Civilization

Indian police end raid on religious site

LUCKNOW, India, Tuesday (Reuters) Indian security forces killed five gunmen who attacked a religious site in northern India on Tuesday that is claimed by both Hindus and Muslims and is a flashpoint for bloody sectarian strife.

The unidentified gunmen raided a complex which houses a makeshift temple to Hindu God-king Ram which was built over a 16th-century mosque torn down by a Hindu mob in 1992. Tensions over the site in the town of Ayodhya have caused widespread sectarian riots in the past.

Security forces were ordered on alert across the country to prevent any fresh trouble after Tuesday's raid, TV reported.

"We have killed five of them and recovered four AK-47 rifles," a district official told Reuters by phone from Ayodhya, about 600 km (375 miles) southeast of New Delhi. "The terrorists also threw some grenades but they did not explode."

He said the men scaled the heavily guarded rear wall of the complex after arriving there in a vehicle. Police had arrested the driver of the vehicle, the official said.

Hardline Hindu groups say the mosque was built by Islamic invaders on the spot where they believe Ram was born thousands of years ago.

The demolition of the mosque triggered nationwide riots in which 3,000 people died, the worst religious clashes since the bloodletting that followed independence and partition of British colonial India into Hindu-majority India and Islamic Pakistan in 1947.

However, Ayodhya, an ancient town of hundreds of temples and narrow, winding streets infested with monkeys, has itself been largely peaceful since the 1992 turmoil.

Reports of the attack hurt Indian shares, which fell as far as 7,249.55 points after hitting a record high of 7,308.72 in early trade. The main Bombay index later recovered and was up 0.18 percent at 7290.71 points 0635 GMT.

FEEDBACK | PRINT

 

| News | Editorial | Business | Features | Political | Security | Sports | World | Letters | Obituaries |

 

Produced by Lake House Copyright © 2003 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.

Comments and suggestions to : Web Manager