Educational institutions run by the minority Catholic community in Bombay were shut on Monday in protest against the assault on a priest last week.
Activists of the Bajrang Dal, the youth wing of the right-wing Vishwa Hindu Parishad, are alleged to have staged the attack on Father Oscar Mendonca at Thane.
Police said the miscreants beat up the priest after they mistook his church for a Baptist mission.
The activists had earlier held a meeting to condemn the murder of four cadres of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, to which the Bajrang Dal is affiliated, in the northeast two years ago. The RSS claims that its cadres were murdered at the behest of the Baptists.
As ordered by Cardinal Ivan Dias, the spiritual head of the Catholics in the city, students assembled in their schools for a brief prayer of atonement and then dispersed without any classes being held.
Individual Catholics were also advised to wear black badges at work on Monday to express solidarity with the assaulted priest.
The Cardinal addressed a rally on Sunday evening at Thane's St John's Baptist Church where Mendonca was assaulted. He, however, cautioned Catholics against retaliating and urged the community to forgive the assailants. The Cardinal said the attack was not only aimed at disrupting communal harmony in the city, but was a grave violation of human rights.
Indo-Asian News Service