About 200 activists of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Bajrang Dal and their women's organisations took out a `Shaurya Rally' on Sunday to commemorate the day amid tight security. The local unit of the Shiv Sena, too, took out a procession during the day.

In the rally that began at the Amdavadi Pol and terminated at Tilak Statue near the Government Press, participants -- some with knives in their belts -- waved saffron flags, shouted slogans against particular communities and demanded a law against religious conversion. Though the rally passed off peacefully, saffron activists took exception to the police escort -- the police, equipped with steel headgear and teargas shells, in fact, outnumbered the participants -- though they calmed down after local VHP leader Niraj Jain took it up with senior officials. VHP state secretary Kamendubhai, who had come from Ahmedabad, said that VHP was firmly determined to construct the temple in Ayodhya and acquire the two mosques in Kashi and Mathura.

Shiv Sena activists led by its local chief Jitubhai Pandya took out the rally from Dandiya Bazar to Por village under Vernama police station to press the Union and State Governments to hand over the management of more than 1,000 government-managed Hindu temples to the people.

In Ahmedabad, more than 100 members the Gujarat wing of Students' Islamic Movement of India pledged to rebuild the mosque. In Surat, no untoward incidence was reported from any part of the city as heavy police force had been deployed all over. Senior police officials kept a strict vigil throughout the day in sensitive areas including Limbayat, Mahidharpura, Varachha, Katargam, Athwa Lines, Udhna and Rander.