Ahmadabad, India -- Built of brick and covered with lime-colored paint, the Manchaji mosque attracted hundreds of Muslims for daily prayers for more than 80 years.
Yesterday, it drew hundreds of Hindu militants, many wielding sledgehammers, metal rods and shovels.
They knocked down the minarets and smashed through the walls. They hoisted saffron-colored Hindu nationalist flags atop the rubble. And on a concrete slab in the center of the compound, they erected an orange, foot-tall statueof the monkey god Hanuman, surrounded by coconuts and flower petals.
"Victory to Lord Hanuman," the Hindus shouted. "Victory to Hindus."
Late last week, in the country's worst religious riots in a decade, Hindus slaughtered hundreds of Muslims and drove thousands more from their homes in this teeming city in western India. Yesterday, as deserted Muslim neighborhoods smoldered, Hindus went on a different sort of rampage, doing their best to obliterate any Muslim symbols they could find.
Gravestones were toppled and replaced with Hanuman statues. Anti-Muslim messages were painted on Muslim homes and businesses. And mosques were torn down to make way for new Hindu temples.
"Today, the Hindu has woken up," proclaimed Mohan Patel, an income tax officer who was helping to lead the demolition. "Today, the Hindu is aggressive."
Only a tiny fraction of India's Hindus, who account for about 80 percent of this country's 1 billion people, participated in the fighting in Ahmadabad. But the attacks point to a growing radical fringe in Hinduism that has become a far more assertive force in society and in the officially secular Indian government.
Egged on by firebrand politicians and driven by poverty, Hindu radicals contend that the best way to solve their problems with Muslims is not through the principles of nonviolence and tolerance taught by this city's most famous former resident, Mohandas Gandhi, but through force.
On the grounds where the mosque had been, Hindu leaders justified their actions by insisting that the site had housed a temple to a goddess before it was torn down by Muslims about 80 years ago.
ABSENCE OF TOLERANCE
"Traditionally, the Hindus were known to be very tolerant," Patel said. "Over centuries, whenever such things happened to Hindu temples, we used to say, 'Just let it be. Let it go.' But we don't feel that way anymore."
Patel and others said they had long desired to demolish the mosque but that those feelings intensified last Wednesday, when a group of Muslims firebombed a train in the city of Godhra that was bringing Hindus home from a rally to build a temple at the site of a destroyed mosque in northern India.
The attack on the train killed 58 passengers -- all Hindus -- and provoked Hindus in Ahmadabad and elsewhere in the state of Gujarat to seek revenge by turning on their Muslim neighbors.
"Godhra changed everything," said Ashwin Patel, a transportation worker who was loitering on the mosque grounds. "We want to take back what is ours. The Muslims should go to Pakistan."
Officials said yesterday that 544 people have died in the religious clashes of the past five days. Police reported several small incidents of Hindu mob violence but said the intensity of the attacks has waned. Officials continued to impose a curfew on many parts of Gujarat, and soldiers increased patrols of trouble spots.
Those restrictions did not stop throngs of Hindus from taking to the streets, often in full view of police, to ransack buildings belonging to Muslims.
At the Manchaji mosque, two cane-toting police officers in pressed khaki uniforms stood atop a half-demolished brick wall, observing the destruction with approving nods.
Not content to wait for the renovations to be finished, the Hindus carted in a small Hanuman idol that had been placed on a small pedestal. A barefoot priest lit incense and rang a bell as he led prayers to the deity. The all- male crowd passed around a bowl of saffron powder, which they applied to their foreheads, and a tray of pea-size sweets, which they ate.
'A PROUD MOMENT FOR US'
Mohan Patel compared the destruction of the mosque to a similar project in Ayodhya, the city from which the train passengers were returning last week. In 1992, Hindu extremists demolished a 16th century mosque there, which led to nationwide riots that claimed more than 2,000 lives.
"This is our Ayodhya," he said. "This is a proud moment for us."
The World Hindu Council, a radical group that sponsored the train passengers' trip to Ayodhya, said yesterday that it would stick to plans to begin building a temple on the mosque site in Ayodhya starting March 15. Some government officials had urged the group to back down out of fear that the commencement of construction could inflame Muslims and lead to more clashes.
In an adjoining, riot-scarred Muslim neighborhood, which was largely deserted, a few men loitering near a row of shuttered shops said the mosque was a popular but peaceful place that attracted hundreds of people for Friday prayers.
The men disputed the Hindus' contention that the site used to house a temple, saying that they had never heard that anything else was there before the mosque was constructed.