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Two mosques attacked, one dead

Two Muslim shrines - one in Uttar Pradesh and the other in Tamil Nadu -- were attacked Sunday by some miscreants.

Syed Ahmed Bukhari, head priest of New Delhi's Jama Masjid, told AFP that unidentified men threw home-made bombs at a mosque in Tamil Nadu, damaging its outer wall.

"A mob came out of nowhere and threw crude bombs at the mosque early in the morning in Tamil Nadu's Tirunelvelu district," he said.

The Press Trust of India, quoting police, said the attackers stabbed a man to death inside the holy place.

Bukhari said the other attack occurred in the northern town of Moradabad in Uttar Pradesh, about 250 km east of New Delhi.

"There was a similar attack in which the wall of a mosque was damaged," he said.

However, Moradabad police official R K Mishra denied that there was a mosque at that site, although admitted that "some anti-social elements" had damaged the wall of a Muslim cemetery.

Bukhari, who is revered by millions of Indian Muslims, said Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's recent statement supporting the 1992 razing of the historic Babri mosque, were to blame for the attacks.

"The prime minister should resign. It is his business to preserve peace and religious amity. Instead he stokes the flames of hatred and tries to undermine Muslims.

On the eighth anniversary of the Babri mosque's destruction, Vajpayee had said the drive to build a temple on the ruins was an "unfinished" national task.

Vajpayee also refused to sack three Union ministers who are accused of inciting frenzied Hindus to tear down the mosque.

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