Indian police battled suspected Islamic militants holed up in a house in the country’s capital yesterday, killing two and arresting one before the others escaped, police said.
The gunbattle in a southern part of sprawling New Delhi put the city back on edge days after five coordinated bombings in the capital’s markets killed 21 people — attacks credited to homegrown Islamic militants.
A senior New Delhi police officer, Karnal Singh, told reporters at the scene of yesterday’s firefight in the Jamia Nagar neighborhood that there were five gunmen. Two were killed, one was arrested and two escaped, he said.
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NDTV television news station reported at least two policemen were wounded in the fighting.
Soon after the gunbattle broke out around noon yesterday, scores of police officers, many in riot gear, could be seen fanning out through Jamia Nagar, a leafy lower middle-class neighborhood.
The scene was chaotic with authorities trying to get civilians out of harm’s way while subduing the militants.
A group calling itself the Indian Mujahideen has claimed responsibility for the New Delhi attacks. It also said it was behind bombings that killed 61 people in the western city of Jaipur in May and July blasts in the western state of Gujarat that killed at least 45.
Police apparently zeroed in yesterday on one New Delhi house after interrogating a man detained after the Gujarat bombings, the Press Trust of India news agency reported.
The man, identified as Abu Basher, said the home in quiet Jamia Nagar was used as a safe house by Islamic militants plotting attacks around India.
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