Party ban urged in Ayodhya dispute

A group of Hindu priests and Muslim leaders have demanded a ban on a hardline Hindu group campaigning to build a temple in the northern Indian town of Ayodhya.

They want it to come up on the site where Hindu zealots demolished a mosque 10 years ago.

A Hindu seer, Mahant Yugal Kishore Shastri, accused leaders of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council or VHP) of trying to create distrust between the Hindu and Muslim communities in India with its temple construction campaign.

Thousands of people have been killed in inter-communal violence since the mosque was destroyed, and Hindu and Muslim groups are involved in a long-running court battle to decide who owns the site.

The judges must decide whether an ancient Hindu temple stood there before the Babri mosque was built in the 16th century.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service