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Victims being taken to hospital
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By
Zafarul-Islam Khan, IOL South Asia correspondent
NEW
DELHI, September 25 (IslamOnline) – The night-long operation to
clear the Swaminarain temple in Gandhinagar, Gujarat state’s
political capital, ended Wednesday morning, September 25, after a
12-hour standoff when the two terrorists who attacked the temple were
killed by the elite National Security Guard (NSG) commandos. One NSG
commando too was killed in the encounter.
Announcing
the end of the operation, Inspector General of Police Pramod Kumar
said there were three terrorists in the age group of 22 to 25 and
efforts were on to identify them. Later this number was brought down
to two.
The
earlier reported number of the casualties too was brought down from 44
to 30. But since 77 injured persons are in hospitals, some with
serious injuries, the casualty figures may rise.
The
remaining 50 people who were trapped in the temple complex overnight
were rescued this morning after the end of the operations. Others,
totaling around 500 had succeeded to leave the sprawling temple
complex last night.
Even
after the operation was called off, an explosion occurred around 0910
this morning in the temple complex. Officials said that it might have
been caused by some left over ammunition.
According
to official and eyewitness reports, the terrorists came in an Indian
make Ambassador car at around 4:45 pm Tuesday evening. They entered
the Swaminarain temple by jumping the fence. The temple is the largest
shrine maintained by the Swaminarain Hindu sect which is popular among
Gujratis at home and abroad.
The
terrorists first hurled grenades, and opened fire indiscriminately at
people inside the temple. Security forces from Gandhinagar were rushed
to the spot and surrounded the temple and a gun-battle followed. More
troops soon joined them and within hours a plane-load of NSG arrived
from Delhi.
The
terrorists reportedly took a vantage position inside the complex, from
where they inflicted injuries on security personnel trying to get
closer.
Both
Gujarat state and central ministers started talking of a Kashmiri
angle to the incident. Home Minister LK Advani said while still in
Delhi that the attack was “a deliberate design to divert attention
from the successful J&K poll”.
Prime
Minister AB Vajpayee, on official tour of the Maldives, repeated the
same in Male and their protégé in Gujarat, chief minister Modi,
clearly accused Pakistan of engineering the attack.
Prime
Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee has cut short his Maldives visit and is
returning today. There is speculation that he may head straight to
Gandhinagar. His deputy LK Advani is already in Gandhinagar and toured
the temple this morning along with Modi. In sharp contrast these
officials were not seen anywhere for days and weeks while Gujarat
burnt in March and April this year.
Also
in sharp contrast to the earlier pogroms, the Indian Army was quickly
deployed in sensitive areas of Gujarat as a precautionary measure. A
brigade comprising over 3,000 personnel has been placed on
“precautionary deployment. A red alert has been sounded across
Gujarat since Tuesday evening following the attack on the temple.
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| Police take position outside the temple compound |
Patrolling
has been stepped up in all areas of the city. The Ahmedabad city
police force has been put on high alert. Security was stepped up in
Vadodara and Surat as well. A Rapid Action Force company reached Surat
late in the evening and staged a flag march.
In
Delhi too “special alert” has been sounded all over the city,
Joint Commissioner of Police Satish Chandra said this morning. Police
personnel have been deployed outside important Hindu temples,
Gurudwaras, churches, mosques, Buddhist monasteries and Jain temples.
The
attack has come in for sharp condemnation by all forces in India
including Indian Muslim organizations. Condemning the terrorist attack
on the Swaminarain temple, President APJ Abdul Kalam Tuesday night
said it was “cowardly act intended to destroy the country’s
secular fabric. The incident needs to be condemned in strongest
possible terms by all peace loving people. It would make us more
resolute in our resolve against terrorism.”
In
New Delhi, Imam of Delhi’s historic Jama Masjid Syed Ahmed Bukhari
Tuesday night condemned the attack on the Swaminarain temple terming
it as “anti-Islamic” but said Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra
Modi’s ‘Gaurav Yatra’ [pride march] could have provoked it.
“Islam
does not permit killing of innocent civilians. I appeal to Muslims and
our Hindu brethren to join hands to wipe out terrorism from the
country’s soil,” Bukhari said. He, however, said some
anti-minorities statements allegedly made by Modi during his ‘Gaurav
Yatra’ and the post-Godhra violence in the state “could have
provoked a retaliatory act.”
Condemning
the attack as a “conspiracy to defame Islam and Muslims,”
president of the All India Organization of Imams of Mosques, Maulana
Jameel Ilyasi, demanded stern action against the culprits. “The
attack is against the teachings of Islam and this kind of anarchy is
unacceptable to Indian Muslims,” he said.
Foreign
forces too condemned the attack on the temple. Both the U.S. and U.K.,
which have said nothing officially about the Gujarat pogroms,
forcefully condemned last night’s attack.
U.S.
President George W Bush said it was a “particularly deadly
attack”. “The President condemns all terrorist attacks, and this
was a particularly deadly attack and the President condemns it,”
Bush’s spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters in Washington Tuesday.
British
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, denouncing the temple attack, said “I
am horrified by the attack on innocent civilians. Religion can never
be an excuse or justification for violence.”
In
Islamabad, a Pakistan Foreign Ministry statement Tuesday condemned the
attack and said “targeting places of worship is particularly
reprehensible.”
“Such
attacks do not promote any cause and are indeed aimed at heightening
tension in the region,” the statement added.
Security
forces in Gandhinagar claimed this morning that documents found in the
possession of the two slain terrorists have led officials to believe
that they belonged to a militant outfit called
“Tahreek-e-Kasas-Gujarat”. Roughly translated, the organization
would mean ‘movement of revenge for Gujarat’.
Brigadier
Raj Sitapati of the NSG, who led the operation, said that two separate
letters written in Urdu had been found from the pockets of the two
terrorists who were aged around 25 years.
“The
letter mentions that the killings were to avenge what happened during
the Gujarat riots”, he said. The letter states that the two
terrorists planned this attack “for the satisfaction of their souls
because they could not tolerate what happened to children, women and
Muslims during the Gujarat riots”.
Officials
believe that the outfit Tehreek-e-Kasas was formed specifically to
avenge the Gujarat riots. Foodstuff like chocolates, raisins, almonds
and dates were also found in the possession of the two terrorists
which means that they may have planned to take hostages.
The
Vishwa Hindu Parishad [VHP-World Hindu Organisation], which engineered
the Gujarat pogroms, has called a ‘Bharat Bandh’ [All India
strike] Thursday, September 26, in protest against the attack, while
its mother organization, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh urged the
people of Gujarat to maintain peace and not to fall prey to the
designs of anti-national terrorists.
The
ruling BJP has decided not to support the VHP strike this time round.
The same party had wholeheartedly supported the strike called by the
same outfit last February after the terrorist attack on the train in
Godhra. That strike led to the pogroms in Gujarat in which 2,000
Muslims were killed and more than 250,000 were left homeless.
