Thousands of Hindus arrested before banned ceremony
Police in India have arrested more than 18,500 Hindu nationalists in an effort to stop them defying a Supreme Court ban on a contentious religious ceremony.
The Hindus want to build a temple on the site of a mosque which was demolished in Ayodhya in 1992.
One of the new temple pillars was due to be dedicated at a ceremony at the site today, but the Supreme Court banned the ceremony due to recent Hindu-Muslim violence in the area.
Thousands of police and paramilitary soldiers sealed off the town today and detained 1,000 activists who tried to cross rice fields and the Saryu River to get access to the disputed site.
Thousands of others, including many members of the hardline World Hindu Council, were also detained in other parts of India to keep them from travelling to Ayodhya or engaging in sectarian mob violence.
