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NEW DELHI, July 5 (Xinhuanet) --Five militants were
killed in an encounter with the security forces at the Babri-Masjid-Ram
Janambhumi complex in Ayodhya town in India, after they stormed the premises
Tuesday morning.
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| In this 1992 file picture, Hindu youths
wave flags atop the 16th century Babri Mosque in Ayodhya, which was later
demolished by Hindu zealots, sparking nationwide riots. In the latest
incident, five gunmen clashed with police inside the controversial
mosque complex in northern India. (Photo:
Xinhua/AFP) | Two security forces personnel
were also injured in the operation, which, UP Government officials said, was
over now. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is holding a cabinet meeting
in New Delhi to take stock of the situation arising out of terrorist attack on
the disputed site in Ayodhya.
Taking cognizance of today's incident, all state
capital has been put on high alert and security in and around the disputed site
has been beefed up further.
Earlier, breaking the security cordon, some
unidentified persons, suspected to be militants, gained entry into the disputed
Ram Janambhoomi campus in the holy city of Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh Tuesday
morning and opened fire on police.
The militants fired indiscriminately, leading to
heavy exchange of fire with security forces, in which one of the attackers was
killed and another captured, the Press Trust of India quoted local police
sources as saying.
Sources said the militants were in a jeep and entered
the campus around 9 am. The attackers were immediately challenged by security
forces leading to the exchange of fire and it was still on.
Tuesday's attack on Babri-Masjid-Ramjanam Bhumi
complex is thefirst attack by militants ever since Hindu militants razed the
16th century Babri Masjid to ground on December 6, 1992
Ayodhya is a center of pilgrimage and is one of the
seven sitessacred to Hindus. In the late 1980s it became the center of
Muslim-Hindu tensions, and in 1992 fundamentalist Hindus pulled down the
16th-century Babri mosque that they alleged stood on the site of Rama's
birthplace. The site of the razed mosque remains a source of contention. Enditem
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