NEW DELHI, India - Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee aiming to contain Hindu-Muslim bloodshed, pledged on Monday to stop hard-line Hindus from holding a prayer ceremony at the flashpoint holy site of Ayodhya if a court ruled against it.
Facing his worst crisis since he took office in 1999, Vajpayee told parliament his government was determined to keep the peace at Ayodhya, where hard-line Hindus plan to hold a prayer ceremony Friday next to the site of a razed mosque. The ceremony would be to bless plans for a temple which the hard-liners eventually want to build on top of or next to the razed mosque. "Ayodhya is peaceful. The situation there is fully under control and all necessary steps have been taken there," Vajpayee said. "The government is determined to keep this peace."
Vajpayee is under pressure to crack down on the hard-line Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) -- which is from the same Hindu nationalist family as his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) -- after its Ayodhya plans fueled communal violence in western India.
More than 700 have died in the violence in Gujarat state that began on Feb. 27 when 58 Hindu devotees and their families were killed while returning by train from Ayodhya, sparking reprisals by Hindu mobs against the minority Muslim population.
A senior police official said Monday that 724 people had died, including those killed on the train.
Local aid agencies say a further 40,000 and 50,000 are in relief camps, most of them Muslims afraid to return home.
"We know what happened in Gujarat. We want to know what is going to happen in Ayodhya now," opposition lawmaker H.D. Devegowda said in parliament.
A court is to decide Wednesday whether hard-line Hindus should be allowed to hold a prayer ceremony at Ayodhya on Friday.
"The government won't do anything that will be against the court verdict," Vajpayee said, adding the government had not given permission for the prayer ceremony or "puja."
However VHP leader Praveen Togadia, who called Sunday for prayers to be held across India so that, "the entire country will become Ayodhya," said the puja would go ahead as planned.
"We are only going to perform 'shila pujan yagya' (a holy fire ritual). So how can anyone stop us?" Togadia told Reuters.
POLICE PATROL AYODHYA
Thousands of police have been drafted into Ayodhya, a town of temples and cheap hotels in Uttar Pradesh state, to prevent any repeat of 1992, when the demolition of the 16th-century Babri mosque triggered nationwide riots in which 3,000 died.
Vajpayee's earlier attempt to end the latest dispute failed Sunday when Muslim leaders rejected proposals by a top Hindu cleric to let the hard-line Hindus hold their prayer ceremony on land adjacent to the site of the razed mosque.
The All India Muslim Personal Law Board asked for written guarantees the original site of the mosque would not be touched until a court -- in a separate hearing from the one due on Wednesday -- ruled on whether it should go to Muslims or Hindus.
It urged the government again Monday to maintain the status quo at the disputed site.
"Either it chooses to appease those people who are bent upon disturbing peace or prevent them from creating lawlessness," board member Syed Shahbuddin told Reuters.
"If the VHP goes ahead with a prayer meeting at Ayodhya on March 15, it could create a serious law and order situation across the country," he said.
Hard-line Hindus believe the Babri mosque was built by Muslim Moghul invaders on the birthplace of the Hindu god-king Ram and they want to build a temple there to set right the insult they believe their religion suffered at the time.
Gujarat has been relatively quiet since authorities called in the army last week to quell violence, though police official Naval Singh said two Hindus were killed and around 30 to 40 Muslim houses burned in unrest in a rural area Sunday.
The communal crisis could not have come at a worse time for Vajpayee, in the midst of a military stand-off with Pakistan.
He now has to choose between turning against his traditional supporters in the VHP, or appeasing them and alienating secular parties in the BJP-led national coalition.
He is also under pressure from the opposition to dismiss Gujarat's BJP Chief Minister Narendra Modi, accused of failing to do enough to stop the violence. Modi denies the accusation.