Tourists charged with breaking into Taj Mahal

Three tourists have been charged with breaking into the Taj Mahal after finding it closed for the first time ever on a Friday.

They climbed over a wall at the famous monument in Agra to get a closer look but were detained by security.

The three are due in court to answer the charge of breaking into an ancient monument.

They are 24-year-old Tony Skarberg from Sweden, 19-year-old Frenchman Andy Ibrahim, and 30-year-old Lo Yong Gil from South Korea.

An Agra police spokesman claimed: "They were caught breaking into the Taj compound."

Their daring mission came three months after the body responsible for looking after the Taj, the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), decided to increase admission prices for foreigners from 20p to around £14.

The monument remained free on Friday after protests from Agra's Muslims.

But last week, the ASI decided to shut the Taj for the first time on Fridays and open it on Mondays instead.

The move, which is designed to extract maximum revenue from visiting tourists, proved so unpopular yesterday, that hundreds of foreigners and locals turned up at the police station to protest.

They were charged by officers wielding sticks known as lathis, and reportedly responded by pelting the police with stones.