The Indian government’s recent relaxation of anti-gay laws may succeed where all other attempts have failed and bring together opposing religious groups, it emerged today.

In a likely suicide attack, unidentified militants blew up a security fence today and stormed a northern Indian Hindu shrine at the heart of a bitter sectarian dispute, setting off a fierce gunbattle with security personnel that left five other attackers dead.

THE death toll from a stampede at a railway station after a huge political rally in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh rose to 16 yesterday when two more people died in hospital, police said.