Ayodhya, India - Indian police fired tear gas on Wednesday 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.
COMMUNAL CATASTROPHE PREVENTED
"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.
Some activists were armed with tridents, which have religious symbolism in India, and wore bandannas in the Hindu holy color of saffron. Some held placards reading: "India won't tolerate an attack on the birthplace of Ram" or "Attack on Ram is attack on country."
Although no group claimed responsibility for Tuesday's attack, Hindu groups blamed Islamic militants they said were supported by neighboring Pakistan, an old enemy and nuclear rival which is now engaged in peace talks with India.
The attack in Ayodhya has raised fears of sectarian strife. Hindu groups demanded that the centrist coalition of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh call off the peace talks with Islamabad, which on Tuesday condemned the attack.
Patil asked politicians not to fan communal passions.
"The political parties should work together toward promoting communal harmony."
AYODHYA PEACEFUL, MARKETS RISE
Unrelated to the latest turmoil over Ayodhya, an Indian court directed authorities to frame charges afresh against BJP chief Lal Krishna Advani for inciting mobs to riot and demolish the historic mosque in 1992.
Although a lower court threw out charges against Advani in 2003 on a technicality, the Allahabad High Court said on Wednesday that judgment was incorrect.
Advani denies any wrongdoing in the case.
Hindus claim the site in Ayodhya is the birthplace of Lord Ram and a temple existed there before Islamic invaders demolished it and built a mosque in its place.
The leveling of the mosque triggered violent nationwide riots in which 3,000 people were killed -- the worst religious clashes since the bloodletting that followed the partition of the subcontinent and the creation of Islamic Pakistan in 1947.
While the identity of the attackers is yet to be established, officials in Uttar Pradesh state, where Ayodhya is located -- about 600 km (375 miles) southeast of New Delhi -- privately said five of the six men were apparently Muslims.
On Wednesday, Ayodhya was peaceful as it has largely been since the 1992 turmoil.
The attack rattled financial markets and contributed to a 0.78 percent fall in the main Bombay stock index on Tuesday. But investors shrugged off political risks on Wednesday, pushing up shares in line with higher global markets.
The benchmark Bombay index rose nearly one percent to a new closing peak.
Analysts said the attack was aimed at igniting sectarian violence and damaging the India-Pakistan peace process launched in 2003. "Those dark ambitions cannot be allowed to succeed," the Indian Express said in an editorial.