New Delhi  - Hundreds of Indian Muslims held protests Thursday against what they called the harassment and torture of their community by police and security forces.

The demonstrators arrived on a train they called the "Ulema Express," which set off from Azamgarh in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh Wednesday and picked up hundreds of Muslims on its 700-kilometre journey to New Delhi.

As about 500 protestors marched from the railway station to the Jantar Mantar area near the Indian parliament, the organizers said hundreds more would join the rally later in the day.

The ulemas, or religious scholars, demanded a judicial inquiry into a September shootout in the capital and the arrests of "innocent youth" for terrorist activities in the country.

Four months ago, police shot dead two Muslim youth and arrested another two in Delhi's southern Batla House area.

The police said the four were Indian Mujahideen militants who were behind bombings in Indian cities, but local Muslims disputed the claim, saying the four were young professionals or students.

Maulana Amir Rashad Madani - a leader of the Ulema Council, which organized the rally - said Muslim youth were being falsely targeted as terrorists in the aftermath of militant attacks across India.

He said security agencies had arrested several men from the Muslim-dominated Azamgarh district as suspects in terrorist attacks.

"We want fake encounters like Batla House to end," Madani told reporters. "We want innocent Muslim youth who have been arrested by the police to be let off in two weeks."

"We will intensify our agitation if the false arrests and harassment continues," he added.

In November, Human Rights Watch said the government of the southern state of Andhra Pradesh should prosecute police officials for the torture of 21 Muslims.

They were among 100 Muslims arrested for questioning after a series of bombings in 2007 in the main city of Hyderabad in which 60 people were killed.

The state government admitted that 21 men had been tortured and would each receive 600 dollars in compensation.

"Over and over again, the police response to terrible bombings has been to round up people simply because they happen to be Muslim and to torture them in the hope of securing information or confessions," New York-based Human Rights Watch said.

"This stigmatizes and alienates an entire community and makes counterterrorism efforts even more difficult," it said. "The police have a long way to go before they can build public trust that they are capable of addressing the scourge of terrorism." (dpa)