An Indian policeman stands guard at the entrance to the Birla Mandir Hindu Temple in New Delhi.

NEW DELHI, July 5 (Xinhuanet) -- The Indian capital, which faced terrorist strike in December 2001 in the form of attack on Parliament building, has been put on high alert in the wake of the Ayodhya incident.

    A Delhi police official said that while the force is equipped enough to deal with any eventuality, still it was not taking any chance.

    "At the same time, one has to pull up his socks. And that's what we have done. Security at sensitive places and vital installations has been stepped up. Additional personnel have been mobilized across Delhi and patrolling by Police Control Room (PCR)vehicles has been intensified," the official said.

    Security forces manning major public places like inter-state bus terminals, railway stations, metro stations, crowded markets and religious places have been told to maintain extra vigil to thwart any possible terror act, he said.

    Terrorists in the past have several times tried to target the national capital. Only recently, Delhi Police have arrested four persons allegedly belonging to a terrorist outfit with a huge cache of arms, who according to the police, were planning to strike on the capital in a big way.

An Indian policeman stands guard outside of the Defense Ministry of India in New Delhi.

New Delhi

    Earlier in the day, breaking the security cordon, five unidentified militants, gained entry into the disputed Babri Masjid-Ram Janambhoomi campus in the holy city of Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh and opened fire with police.

    The militants fired indiscriminately, leading to heavy exchange of fire with security forces in which all five alleged militants were killed, while three security personnel were injured.

    Ayodhya is a center of pilgrimage and is one of the seven sites sacred 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 they alleged as standing on the site of Rama's birthplace. The site of the razed mosque remains a source of contention. Enditem