AYODHYA, India?India’s prime minister appealed for peace Thursday following Hindu Muslim violence that has killed more than 700 people, and police arrested hundreds of Hindu activists.

More than 14,000 police and troops patrolled streets and canals in the northern city of Ayodhya, where Hindu nationalists vowed to pray Friday near the site of a razed 16th-century mosque despite a Supreme Court ban on the ceremony.

“I appeal to all the political and nonpolitical organizations across the country to cooperate with government?to maintain peace and communal harmony,” Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee told Parliament in New Delhi.

Despite Vajpayee’s call for unity, Parliament adjourned in an uproar Thursday after an opposition lawmaker accused Vajpayee of advocating Hindu nationalism. Most of India’s 1.2 billion people are Hindus, but the constitution requires a secular government.