NEW DELHI: India has barred public gatherings in the town of Ayodhya as the Supreme Court started hearing final arguments on Monday to decide whether a Hindu temple should be built on the ruins of a mosque in a long-running dispute.

The razing of the 16th-century Babri mosque by Hindu mobs in 1992 led to one officially secular India’s deadliest bouts of communal riots, in which at least 2,000 people, most of them Muslim, were killed across the country.

Hindu groups believe the site is the birthplace of Lord Ram and have intensified calls for a temple to be built there under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government.

(Agencies)