HYDERABAD, India (AP) – Hundreds of police in riot gear deployed Saturday throughout the mostly deserted streets of Hyderabad, hoping to prevent anger about a mosque bombing from sparking more religious violence that has plagued the southern Indian city.

Most shops closed for a daylong strike to protest Friday’s attack at the 17th-century Mecca mosque that killed 11 people and the ensuing clashes with police that left five more dead.

Authorities across India were told to be alert for any signs of Hindu-Muslim fighting, and top officials called for calm.

Protesters planted black mourning flags across the city, and families of those killed prepared for funerals.

Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy, the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh state, where Hyderabad is located, called the bombing an act of “intentional sabotage on the peace and tranquility in the country.”

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh also condemned the attack, the second on a mosque in a year, and urged Indians to remain peaceful.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, and officials refused to publicly say who they suspect.

Indian media reported Saturday that intelligence agencies were looking at a possible link to Islamic militant groups based in neighboring Pakistan, India’s longtime rival.

None of the accounts offered any reasons why investigators would suspect Muslim groups in an attack on a mosque, but the militants are routinely blamed even when Muslims are targeted.

Such accusations stoke resentment among Muslims, who account for about 130 million of India’s 1.1 billion people, about 80 percent of whom are Hindu.

Asaduddin Owaisi, a Muslim federal lawmaker, met grieving family members of those killed outside the Mecca mosque and said he would demand an investigation by the independent Central Bureau of Investigation.

“We don’t have confidence in the local police to catch the real culprits,” he said, adding that he suspected the involvement of Hindu extremists in the attack.

But Home Minister Shivraj Patil said it was too early for the government to order a judicial inquiry or CBI investigation.

“The government of Andhra Pradesh is quite capable of handling any difficult situation on its own,” he told reporters.

After Friday’s bombing, groups of Muslims clashed with security forces in at least three parts of Hyderabad, and police used live ammunition and tear gas to quell the riots.

Five people were killed in the clashes, chief minister Reddy told reporters. He also said 11 people were killed in the bombing and 60 people were wounded in both the blast and clashes, updating earlier tolls.

Hyderabad, a city of 7 million people, about 40 percent of whom are Muslim, has long been plagued by communal tensions – and occasional spasms of inter-religious bloodletting.

Five people were killed and 27 wounded in Hindu-Muslim clashes in 2003. The fighting began when Muslims marked the anniversary of the destruction of the 16th century Babri Mosque by Hindu extremists in northern India in 1992.

Relations between Hindus and Muslims have been largely peaceful since the bloody partition of the subcontinent into India and Muslim Pakistan at independence from Britain in 1947.

But mistrust runs deep and there have been sporadic bouts of violence.

The worst in recent years came in 2002, in the western Gujarat state. More than 1,000 people, most of them Muslim, were killed by Hindu mobs after a train fire killed 60 Hindus returning from a pilgrimage. Muslims were blamed for the train fire.

A series of blasts have hit India in the past year, including the July bombings of seven Mumbai commuter trains that killed more than 200 people.