At least six people were hurt in Kashmir's main city of Srinagar when police fired teargas at stone-throwing demonstrators. The protesters were enraged at the destruction of the 350-year-old wooden shrine, which housed a relic of Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jeelani, an 11th-century Sufi saint.

Rioters set a fire engine alight and threw stones at firefighters.

"After morning prayers, fire started from the roof of the shrine," said Farooq Ahmad, a police official. "The holy relic of the Sufi saint is safe and has been retrieved."

Police sealed off roads leading to the shrine where hundreds of men and women had gathered, many of them wailing and crying.