India's Hindu hardliners have held a peaceful march in the northern town of Ayodhya to show support for a temple they want to build on the site of a razed mosque. 

About 300 marchers held a prayer ceremony outside the disputed site, and then handed over to authorities a stone piller to be used in a future temple dedicated to their god, Rama. 

India's Supreme Court Wednesday banned any religious activity at the site of the destroyed mosque and the surrounding government-owned land. 

Hindu hardliners had earlier threatened to defy the court order and hold a prayer ceremony at the site, prompting authorities to deploy thousands of paramilitary troops and police to seal off the town. 

Authorities have stepped up security throughout the country, fearing that a prayer at Ayodhya's disputed site could further inflame tensions between Hindus and Muslims. In the western state of Maharashtra, police said they have detained nearly 10,000 people to prevent any outbreak of violence. 

The state's capital, Bombay, was the scene of some of the worst communal riots in 1992, which erupted after Hindu zealots destroyed the 16th century mosque in Ayodhya. Some 2,000 people died in nationwide violence. 

The temple-mosque controversy again sparked Hindu-Muslim violence last month in India's western Gujarat state that claimed nearly 700 lives. 

Hindu zealots claim that Muslim rulers built the mosque in Ayodhya after razing a temple at the birthplace of the Hindu god. 

Some information for this report provided by AFP and Reuters.

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