Christians across India are observing a national day of protests against what church leaders have termed the worst wave of persecution and violence against them in 51 years of Indian independence.

About 2.5% of India's population is Christian.

Some of the country's top schools run by Christian orders are closed because of the protest in the western state of Gujrat.

The Hindu nationalist BJP government has threatened to take action against schools observing the protest.

Folk singers led a crowd of several thousand demonstrators in hymns and songs of protest.

A street in central Delhi was closed to traffic to accommodate the rally.

'Attacks and discrimination'

The city's Roman Catholic archbishoip, Alan de Lastic, said the protest was a peaceful gesture to mark the frustration of India's 23 million Christians with the failure of the police and the government to protect them from attacks and discrimination, mainly by Hindu extremist groups.

Activists handed out lists of violent incidents that suggested a more than a 10-fold increase in religiously-motivated attacks recently - the most infamous being the gang rape of several nuns in the central state of Madhya Pradesh last September.

A spokesman, Father Emmanuel Dominic, said the normally reticent Christian community had to break with the tradition of meekness and assert its right to safety and freedom of worship:

"There could be nothing more dangerous than what we have already faced," he said.

"As the archbishop himself has said, we want to say that we will continue our work of development, education and upliftment of the poor and whatever objections there might be, we are ready to face them."

Hindu extremist groups, some affiliated with the governing Hindu nationalist BJP in Delhi, single out Christian missions in India and accuse them of making conversions, especially of low caste Hindus.

But the Christians say all conversions are voluntary and there are not that many of them.