Police gunned down the suspected mastermind of last month's twin car bombs that rocked Bombay as well as an accomplice, as the pair handed over explosives to a third person, officials said yesterday.
Naseer, a Muslim who like many Indians uses only one name, was shot dead with the unidentified accomplice outside a Bombay college late on Friday, said police sources who did not name the fate of the third person.
According to senior officials, Naseer was the brain behind the blasts which killed 52 people and left 150 injured in India's commercial hub on Aug. 25.
They claim he provided training to the bomb-makers and planted the devices in cars at the Gateway of India landmark and the crowded Jhaveri Bazaar.
The two bombs exploded within minutes of each other, causing massive bloodshed and damage.
"We had an encounter in which Naseer, whom we believe is the mastermind of the Aug. 25 blasts, was shot down and along with him there was another accomplice but we as of now do not know his identity," Bombay's joint police commissioner Satya Pal Singh said.
Another police official told the Hindi news channel Aaj Tak that detectives laid a trap for Naseer after receiving a tip-off that he and an accomplice were planning to hand over some explosives to another person before leaving India.
When Naseer reached the designated spot, he was asked to surrender but he fired at the policemen, the official said.
Both men were killed in the ensuing gunfight, he said, adding that about 100 gelatine sticks, two pistols and some detonators were found in the car in which the two had been travelling.
Police had arrested four people -- including a man, his wife and their 17-year-old daughter -- within a week of the blasts after they were identified by a taxi driver whose vehicle was used to carry one of the bombs.
The driver survived because he left his car for a cup of tea.
According to reports quoting senior police officials, those arrested had confessed to the bombings, claiming they were avenging the deaths of Muslims at the hands of Hindu mobs in the western state of Gujarat last year.
At least 2,000 people -- mostly Muslims -- were killed in the riots, sparked by the massacre of 59 Hindus when their train compartment was set on fire.
The Gujarat government, run by India's ruling Hindu nationalist BJP party, was accused by human rights groups of turning a blind or even sympathetic eye to vigilante attacks on Muslims.
According to police, one of the four arrested for the Bombay bombs, Arshad Shafique Ansari, was traumatized after seeing a woman raped and killed during the riots.
Bombay police yesterday claimed Naseer had been the chief of the Gujarat Revenge Force, which was formed after the riots and was also involved in another blast in the city on July 28 which killed four and left 42 injured.
Chhagan Bhujpal, deputy chief minister of Maharashtra state of which Bombay is the capital, has claimed militants such as those who carried out the bombings had found a "nest of recruits" among Muslims scarred by last year's riots.
Newspaper reports yesterday said Naseer had links with the pro-Pakistan Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group, which is battling New Delhi's rule in Indian Kashmir and has been accused of involvement in a deadly attack on India's parliament on Dec. 13, 2001.
RSS