5 Killed at Mosque in Clash Between Hindus, India Police

Government forces fired on thousands of Hindu fundamentalists who broke through police barricades today and forced their way into a heavily guarded mosque. Five Hindus were killed and 20 wounded.

At least 23 people were killed in other parts of India as the decades-old dispute between Hindus and Muslims over ownership of the site came to a head.

The controversy has left at least 135 people dead in the last week, brought Prime Minister V. P. Singh’s government close to collapse and further strained already tense relations between India’s Hindu majority and Muslim minority.

Singh, who opposes the Hindu campaign to replace the 16th-Century Muslim mosque, today repeated his offer to resign if his party believed that it would help contain the sectarian violence. He made a similar offer Monday.

Hindu fundamentalists had said they would start construction today on a temple to the god Rama on the site occupied by the mosque. The government said it would block any attempt to destroy the small, one-story shrine and arrested 90,000 supporters of the fundamentalist World Hindu Council in the last week.

Today, 10,000 Hindus stormed police barricades outside the disputed shrine. Police first used tear gas and bamboo canes to beat back the crowd. Then, after several hours of clashes as the crowds pushed closer and closer to the mosque, the police fired rifles.

Reporters saw four bodies, but a government spokesman in New Delhi later said five people were killed. Witnesses said at least 20 people were wounded.

S. K. Gupta, a doctor at a local hospital, said 13 of the injured were in serious condition.

Thousands of young men wearing orange headbands, the color of the Hindu faith, broke through successive police cordons, entered the small mosque, pried bricks from the wall and chipped bits of plaster from its three domes. They planted an orange flag on each dome before police chased them away.

While the crowds rushed toward the mosque, Hindu holy men screamed obscenities from rooftops and pelted police with stones. At least four police officers were injured.