Rage against attack on Indian holy site

Indian police fired tear gas yesterday to disperse Hindu activists who blocked roads and closed shops in dozens of cities to protest an attack on a holy site that has been a tinderbox for Hindu-Muslim violence.

Police nationwide went on alert to prevent violence and rioting a day after unidentified gunmen stormed the site, which is claimed both by India's majority Hindus and its minority Muslims, in the northern town of Ayodhya.

Hindu activists smashed windshields of cars trying to evade a blockade in the eastern city of Ranchi. Another crowd shattered potted plants at the airport in the central town of Indore, delaying a departing flight.

Overall, the violence was minimal compared to the communal conflagrations touched off by similar provocations in the past.

The protests followed Tuesday's attack by five gunmen and a suicide bomber on a complex that houses a makeshift temple of the Hindu God-king Ram that was built over a 16th-century mosque torn down by a Hindu mob in 1992.

Police killed the men in a two-hour gunfight. Indian Home Minister Shivraj Patil told reporters after touring Ayodhya that the killing of the raiders before they could reach the makeshift temple in the heart of the religious complex had prevented a communal conflagration.

"If they had succeeded in their design, it would have led to a nationwide catastrophe," a heavily guarded Patil said.

One of the bigger protests against the attack was in New Delhi, where police fired tear gas and used water cannon to disperse about 1,000 Hindu activists.