NEW DELHI, 13 October 2003 — Amid prospects of peace and secularism being held hostage in a politically charged atmosphere to Hindu extremist elements, tight security measures and stringent control has let an easy calm prevail in Ayodhya.
With thousands of security personnel spread in and around Ayodhya, security measures have been stepped up to prevent Hindu activists from reaching the town, ahead of the VHP’s Oct. 17 “Mass Awareness Campaign” for construction of a temple at the disputed site.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav is understood to have sought the center’s intervention to ask the VHP to cancel its proposed Oct. 17 plan.
Dismissing the probability of the center asking the VHP to cancel its program, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee said that the government should go by its words that it would be peaceful.
“VHP is saying that they will do everything in a peaceful manner. We should have faith in what they say,” Vajpayee said yesterday on his arrival from an eight-day trip to Indonesia and Thailand.
With VHP remaining adamant about its program, a clash between it and the administration cannot be ruled out, sources said.
“Our program stands. Any attempt to crack down on peaceful workers may charge the atmosphere,” a VHP spokesman said.
VHP has also threatened to launch an indefinite “Ayodhya Chalo Andolan” (Move toward Ayodhya movement) from Oct.18, if the central and state governments prevent its “peaceful and democratic” program.
With the Uttar Pradesh government taking no chances and the center having dispatched over 80 companies of paramilitary forces, security cover in Ayodhya has been further strengthened.
