VHP asks Muslims to give up 3 disputed sites

Singhal, international vice president of the militant Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP, World Hindu Council), accused the Muslim community of adopting a "rigid attitude."

"Having adopted such a rigid attiude, Muslims cannot live in the society," he said, as quoted by the Press Trust of India news agency.

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"They should not challenge the self-respect of Hindus. They have to reach an understanding with Hindus and give up their claim on the three temples," he said.

Singhal said the status of three places in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh was "non-negotiable": Ayodhya, Kashi and Mathura.

The three Hindu pilgrimage towns all have shrine areas claimed by both Hindus and Muslims.

The most explosive dispute is over Ayodhya, where thousands of Hindu zealots in December 1992 razed a 16th-century mosque, believing it had been built over the ruins of a Hindu temple that marked the birthplace of warrior god Ram.

In Kashi and Mathura, temples and mosques exist side by side.

The demolition of the Babri mosque in Ayodhya set off nationwide riots between Hindus and Muslims that left at least 2,000 people dead and hundreds of thousands homeless.

The fate of the site is in the hands of a court, which has ordered an archaeological dig to check the Hindus' claim of a former temple.

An attempt by a prominent Hindu pontiff, Acharya Jayendra Saraswati, to solve the Ayodhya dispute was rejected a week ago by India's main Muslim body the All India Muslim Personal Law Board.

Saraswati had proposed that Hindus build a temple in an area adjoining the disputed site while negotiations continued.

But India's main Muslim body rejected Saraswati's suggestions Sunday saying that it looked on them as "thinly veiled threats".

The VHP has close links with Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's BJP party, but the latter has played down its ties to the temple construction movement since coming to power in 1998.