Police arrest nearly 17,000 (Hindu) before planned Ayodya rally

[dArKeR]

Nearly 17,000 Hindu hard-liners have been arrested to keep them from the site of a razed mosque that's become a flashpoint for recurring Hindu-Muslim violence, police said yesterday.

Police also surrounded about 2,000 Hindu activists camped outside the northern town of Ayodhya, the site of the 16th-century Babri Mosque. The activists were planning a rally at the site Friday.

"They will not be allowed to step outside," said a top state government official, Akhand Pratap Singh.

"So far, 16,700 ... activists have been arrested from different parts of the state," Singh said in Lucknow, capital of Uttar Pradesh state.

http://www.etaiwannews.com/Asia/2003/10/17/1066355391.htm