INDIA: Police shot dead two armed militants yesterday evening in an upmarket shopping mall in the Indian capital, New Delhi, that was packed with people shopping for Diwali, the annual Hindu festival of lights which is celebrated today.
The joint police commissioner, Mr Neeraj Kumar, said the two gunmen belonged to the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (Army of the Pure) guerrilla group.
Delhi's south district police chief, Mr Ashok Chand, said the two gunmen, armed with AK47 assault rifles, pistols and a timer device to set off remote-controlled bombs, were killed by commandos in the Ansal Plaza shopping mall's basement parking lot after a 15-minute firefight.
He said the police had prior intelligence that militants were planning to strike a crowded area around Diwali and had laid an ambush at the shopping mall, frequented by the city's rich.
The Lashkar-e-Taiba, based at Mudrike near the Pakistani border city of Lahore, believe that the necessity for jihad (Muslim holy war) has always existed and considers democracy to be one of the "menaces" inherited from the "alien" West.
The insurgent group is one of the main terrorist outfits fighting the 13-year-old civil war in disputed Kashmir for a Muslim homeland.