Indian police said they shot dead three suspected members of Pakistan-based Islamic militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba in a suburb of Bombay today.
The men were killed in a midday shootout on a busy highway. "They fired on us first and we fired back," deputy police commissioner Pradip Sawant said, adding police found an assault rifle and pistols in the men's car.
Police said they had been keeping the men under surveillance and believed they belonged to the Lashkar-e-Taiba.
"We strongly suspect that this group was involved in the recent blasts," said Bombay police chief RS Sharma, referring to a wave of blasts in the city in the last few months, including a bomb that exploded in a train in mid-March killing 11 people and wounding 75.
Nobody has claimed responsibility for the blasts.
Nuclear-armed India and Pakistan nearly went to war last year over New Delhi's accusations that Islamabad sponsored "cross-border terrorism". Tensions lessened after Pakistan pledged to check Muslim militancy.