Indian police arrest Hindu hardliners after fears of violence at holy site

Police arrested dozens of Hindu activists in northern India on Sunday, even as others pledged to march to a disputed holy site with a history of triggering Hindu-Muslim bloodshed.

Thousands of police have mobilised in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh to try to prevent violence and block the start planned for Sunday of a 20-day march to the temple town of Ayodhya.

At least 125 people have been arrested including leaders of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) before the start of the march, said a spokesman for the hardline Hindu group. State authorities have banned the march for fear of violence.

“Some of our senior leaders have been arrested but people are collecting in groups to join the yatra (religious march),” VHP spokesman Prakash Sharma told AFP.

Hindus and Muslims both claim a disputed site in Ayodhya. The destruction of a 16th-century mosque there by Hindu zealots in 1992 triggered some of the worst sectarian violence in India since the partition of the subcontinent in 1947.

Some 2,000 people, mostly Muslims, were killed.

The march is part of a campaign to build a temple on the ruins of the mosque site. That drive remains an important plank of the main opposition Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, which came to national prominence over the Ayodhya issue.