Security forces are on alert across India today as Hindu groups prepare to launch country-wide protests after unidentified militants used a car bomb to blow up a security wall and stormed a Hindu temple at one of India's holiest religious sites.
Officials said there were no reports of violence overnight after yesterday's attack on the religious complex in the northern Indian town of Ayodhya that is claimed both by India's majority Hindus and its minority Muslims.
"It has been very peaceful everywhere through the night," a home (interior) ministry official told journalists. "But we will remain very alert and we are confident that peace will be maintained."
Security forces stepped up vigil at government and military facilities, nuclear power stations, temples and mosques following the attack by five gunmen on the Ayodhya complex, which houses a makeshift temple to Hindu God-king Ram built over a 16th-century mosque torn down by a Hindu mob in 1992.
Although the men were gunned down by police and a sixth attacker blew himself up, the attack raised fears of fresh sectarian strife as the row over the holy site has sparked bloody Hindu-Muslim conflict in the past.
The home ministry official said police had put up extra metal detectors at sensitive buildings and people entering temples, the Bombay stock exchange, large banks and government offices were being frisked and even religious offerings at temples were examined.
The opposition Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its hardline sister groups have called for a national protest on Wednesday saying the raid on the holy site was an attack on "Hindu faith."
Although no group claimed responsibility for the attack, Hindu groups blamed the raid on Islamic militant groups they said were supported by neighboring Pakistan.