BBC reporter:
Hindu militants try to lever down what remains of the mosque at Ayodhya - pulling with ropes down a hill made of rubble. Since yesterday, they have torn apart the building: they say they have already started putting up a Hindu temple to replace it. The destruction follows five years of conflict over the site. Two Indian prime ministers have fallen, failing to resolve it. The mosque - an important Muslim shrine - was built more than four centuries ago on a site which is said to be the birthplace of Lord Rama.
He became the most important deity of the new Hindu nationalists, after his life story was turned into a soap opera. The TV series, the most watched in India, showed his birth at Ayodhya, confirming its place as the focus of the new dispute. The man who turned this popular religion into a national political programme was L.K. Advani. He skilfully played on the fears of India's Hindu majority, releasing the genie of religious fundamentalism into a democracy which had kept it out. Mr Advani's resignation today is a recognition that the actions of the mob in Ayodhya have damaged the cause of Hindu nationalism, although he still denies all Muslim claims to the site, where a mosque has stood since 1528.

Dr Krishna Hardas:
Let me make one point quite clear. It has not been a mosque at all. It's a defiled Hindu temple.

BBC reporter:
Nearly half a century ago, disputes between Hindus and Muslims caused thousands of deaths and directly led to the divisions creating India and Pakistan. The protection guaranteed for minorities in a secular Indian state is now threatened.

Professor Akbar Ahmed:
I think it's very dangerous: I think that we have turned a corner really in terms of communal violence - the people who demolished Ayodhya, have a list of about three thousand other mosques all over India, and they claim that they will run down this list, so Muslims who were prepared to talk about Ayodhya - the moderate Muslims - who said they will concede it, were always worried that this would be not the end - but the beginning.

BBC reporter:
As Indians again mourn those killed in what they call "communal violence", there has been day-time curfew in some towns with large Muslim populations. The police are armed and have been instructed to shoot. Black flags fly over some Muslim homes and mosques - as India's establishment counts the cost, fearing the consequences to the non-religious secular constitution.

Indian High Commissioner Dr L M Singhvi:
The terrible damage to the mosque structure is more than a damage to the structure - the physical structure. It is a very deep damage done to our whole fabric of secularism.

BBC reporter:
Over the border in Pakistan, thousands of Muslim demonstrators have taken to the streets. Hindu temples have been burnt in revenge for the demolition of the Ayodhya Mosque.

(Report from BBC 9 o'clock News 07/12/1992)