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Mumbai blast suspect shot dead
22/08/2006 08:45 - (SA)
New Delhi - Police in India killed a suspected Pakistani terrorist and arrested another in India's western Mumbai city on Tuesday, after claiming to have made a breakthrough in last month's bombings in the city that killed over 180 people, news reports and officials said.
According to the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS), the terror suspect, Mohammed Ali, alias Abu Osama, was killed in a gunbattle in the early hours of Tuesday in the city's Antop Hill.
Ali's associate, Riyaz Nawabuddin, another Pakistani national, tipped the ATS about the whereabouts of Ali after police arrested him on Monday night.
AK-47, explosives found
Police said the suspected terrorist opened fire at the ATS team which had reached the scene. The ATS team fired in retaliation, killing Ali. An AK-47 rifle and a sizeable quantity of explosive RDX was also seized from the scene, police said.
Police cordoned off the area and bomb disposal teams as well as other police teams were conducting a search of the area. According to the NDTV, the Mumbai's anti-terrorist squad has described this as a breakthrough in its fight against terrorism.
"There were just two people today, but there may be more involved. It's too early to speculate how many people were involved but we can consider it as a success for the ATS. We were working on specific intelligence inputs over the past few days," KPS Raghuvanshi, the ATS chief, was quoted by NDTV as saying.
Link to Mumbai blasts not confirmed
However, Raghuvanshi declined to categorically confirm whether the encounter was linked to the July 11 blasts in Mumbai. "More information will be given later in the afternoon. I cannot say anything more," he told reporters.
Indian security agencies suspect terror organisation Lashkar-E-Toiba (Army of the Pure), which is allegedly based in Pakistan, to have carried out the carnage in Mumbai.
So far over a dozen people have been arrested in connection with the bombings which killed 186 people on Mumbai's trains. All the arrested are Indian Muslims. They include a journalist, a software professional and an alleged LeT commander. - Sapa-dpa
- SAPA
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