Indian holy site still poses threat

Injured children rest inside a Shah Alam Mosque in Ahmadabad

AHMEDABAD, India (CNN) -- The threat of renewed religious violence continued to linger over northern India, with a hardline Hindu group insisting it would build a temple on a site central to recent deadly clashes.

With the violence that left hundreds dead now 'under control', attention turned to the political and social uncertainties raised by the disputed site in the central Indian town of Ayodhya.

"The programme (to build a Hindu temple) will never be called off," Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) president Ashok Singhal told reporters Monday.

Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, whose Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) stems from the same Hindu revivalist movement as the VHP, had urged it to delay the temple after India's worst Hindu-Muslim violence in a decade erupted last week.

VIDEO CNN's Satiner Bindra says recent rioting from Hindu-Muslim clashes in western India have devasted businesses in the city of Ahmedabad (March 4) Play video (QuickTime, Real or Windows Media) After five days of bloody reprisals by Hindus in western India, many Muslim residents in rural villages are living in fear. CNN's Satinder Bindra reports Play video (QuickTime, Real or Windows Media)   MORE STORIES • Vajpayee: Rioting a 'disgrace to nation'    FOCUS Rebuilding the Ayodhya temple  • Ayodhya: India's religious flashpoint    RESOURCES Gallery: Hindu-Muslim violence flares up  Gallery: Godhra train fire     CNN.com Asia More news from our Asia edition

Under pressure from opposition parties and its own allies in the coalition government, the BJP sought a postponent of a March 15 decision deadline, lest it provoke further outbreaks of Hindu-Muslim unrest.

The VHP plans to shift building materials to undisputed land around the temple plot in the northern Indian city of Ayodhya from March 15 and begin construction soon after.

Hostilities ease

Described as the worst secular bloodshed in a decade, the situation in the western Indian state was "becoming normal," India's home minister said after touring the charred site of a train attack which sparked the carnage.

Home Minister L.K. Advani said security forces had brought the situation under control in the towns at the center of the bloody rampages between Muslims and Hindus that killed more than 450 people.

Some news agencies were putting the death toll as high as 540.

"When a holocaust of this kind happens as it has over the past five days, obviously people will be scared and it is our job as the administration to reassure them," he said.

Advani said incidents of violence had decreased, however some of the fighting had spread from the heavily policed city areas to the more unguarded rural regions in the state of Gujarat.

At least six people were killed in weekend clashes between Muslims and Hindus. Among them, four Muslims burned alive in the town of Deodhar.

Most of the dead in the wake of the train attack were Muslims, killed at the hands of Hindus.

Many of the dead were burned alive when mobs attacked homes and shops.

'Shoot to kill'

The uprising began Wednesday when a large group, believed to be organized Muslims, fire-bombed a train carrying Hindu activists near Godhra, killing 58.

The activists were returning from a demonstration in Ayodhya, where they were demanding the Indian government build a Hindu temple on the ruins of a Muslim mosque.

A Muslim woman cries while praying near her destroyed home near Ahmedabad

Since Wednesday, Hindus and Muslims have laid siege to the city of Ahmedabad and other parts of Gujurat, engaging in pitched battles, using stones, sticks, knives, swords and homemade bombs -- with each side accusing the other of stepping up the violence.

Ahmedabad, though now relatively calm, resembles a war zone.

Debris litters streets, shells of burnt out vehicles stand derelict in streets, and many businesses, homes and religious sites are blackened or destroyed by fire attacks during the fierce clashes.

Thousands of police and paramilitary forces patrol the streets with 'shoot-to-kill' orders if they encounter any rioters. Officials say police in Gujarat shot dead 80 as they tried to assert control.

Victims speak out

Telling horrific tales, victims have urged the government to act.

"Both Hindus and Muslims have gone mad -- otherwise how could people kill each other," Thodaji Nagai Prajapati, a 46-year-old driver covered in burns and bandages, told Reuters from his hospital bed Sunday.

Baker Moin-uddin Sheikh, 31, watched his family die in an attack Friday in which 65 Muslims were burned alive.

"I saw my father, sister and mother being burned alive. Despite pleas for help nobody came to our rescue," he said.

"Will someone take action against them for being responsible for my family's brutal killing?"