Mobs have taken to the streets of Bombay demanding that all city institutions, including the stock exchange and High Court, drop references to the city’s historic name - and British-ruled past.

Right-wing Hindu extremists have also targeted The Bombay Times, calling for the paper to call itself The Mumbai Times. Shop fronts bearing the word Bombay were vandalised.

City institutions have been called on to rename themselves - or else.

The ultimatum was laid down by Bal Thackeray, the 82-year-old leader of the fundamentalist Shiv Sena party, which for decades has railed against “outsiders” migrating to India’s most cosmopolitan city. It was under the veteran firebrand’s watch that Bombay was rebranded Mumbai (after the Hindu goddess Mumbadevi) in 1995.

“We are warning people intoxicated by the name of Bombay,” Mr Thackeray wrote in his party’s newspaper. “This warning should be sufficient. Those that do not understand the warning may find they do not have a path to escape tomorrow.”

Several Indian cities have been renamed since the mid 1990s: Madras became Chennai; Calcutta is now Kolkata; Bangalore was dubbed Bengaluru – but the new nomenclature has not been embraced universally.

A spokesman for the Bombay stock exchange said the organisation had “better things to worry about”.

Rahul Kansal, brand director of The Bombay Times, said, however, that it was taking the possibility of violence against its staff seriously.

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