HYDERABAD (AFP) -- A Muslim party in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad called for a strike Saturday after 14 people were killed in a bomb blast at a mosque and subsequent clashes between police and protesters.

Ten people were killed in Friday's explosion at the 17th century Mecca Mosque, while four others were killed when clashes between police and Muslims angered by the attack turned violent, prompting police fire.

India's Home Minister Shivraj Patil arrived to assess the situation in Hyderabad, one of India's most developed cities and an emerging software hub, after authorities went on high alert against possible sectarian violence.

"The deaths are 14. Ten in the blast and four in the firing," said city police commissioner Balwinder Singh, adding that more than 50 others were hurt, two of them seriously.

Singh also said security arrangements had been put in place following the strike call by the area's main Muslim party, the Majlis-Ittehadul Muslimeen (United Muslim Party), in protest over the blast and subsequent violence.

The old city was deserted Saturday and state buses were not operating, the Press Trust of India news agency reported.

The attack in Hyderabad -- the capital of Andhra Pradesh state -- bore some similarities to the September 2006 bombing of a mosque in Malegaon in western India, which killed 31 people and wounded 297.

Around 1,000 devotees were at the mosque at the time of the explosion. At least three other unexploded devices found in the area were defused, officials and reports said.

Senior state officials said the bomb that exploded was "very sophisticated" and had been triggered remotely by mobile phone, the Indian Express daily reported.

State chief minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy told reporters that authorities had received intelligence reports in recent months about a possible terror strike in Hyderabad.

"Some inputs were coming from the Home Ministry and our own intelligence that some elements were trying to disturb the peace," Reddy told television channel NDTV.