Ayodhya attackers came from Pakistan. Again Lashkar-e-Taiba in the news…
LUCKNOW, India (AFP) - Five gunmen who attacked a disputed religious site in northern India were Islamic militants who came from Pakistan, police said, adding that two gun-runners linked to the assault have been arrested in Kashmir.
The five were all members of the Lashkar-e-Taiba guerrilla force, which India blames for an attack on its parliament in December 2001 and on a Hindu temple in western Gujarat state in 2002, a police chief said on Friday.
The militants were gunned down by Indian troops when they blasted their way into a heavily-guarded religious complex claimed by both Hindus and Muslims in the northern Indian town of Ayodhya on July 5. A sixth person who has not been identified was also killed.
“The militants crossed over into India from Pakistan in August 2004 and began their plans to attack the shrine,” said Yashpal Singh, chief of the police force of Uttar Pradesh state where Ayodhya is located.
“They were all foreign nationals,” Singh told reporters in state capital Lucknow, without elaborating.
None of Kashmir’s two dozen Islamic separatist groups have so far claimed responsibility for the strike on the Ayodhya site, which has been a flashpoint since 1992 when Hindu zealots destroyed the ancient Babri mosque and built a makeshift temple to the Hindu deity Ram, triggering communal riots that left 2,000 people dead across India.
Two days after the Ayodhya attack, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh warned that such assaults could disrupt the peace process with Pakistan, but stopped short of blaming Islamabad.
“Certainly these incidents, (if) they get repeated – have the potential to disrupt the peace process. All concerned have a commitment to make it irreversible,” Singh said.
Pakistan rejected the warning, with foreign ministry spokesman Naeem Khan saying Islamabad believed the peace process is irreversible “and terrorists cannot be allowed to waver the commitment of the two countries to the dialogue process.”
Police chief Singh said two gun-runners linked to the assault were arrested in Kashmir and had provided vital information on the modus operandi of the attackers.
Two of the slain guerrillas had been identified, he said, adding that the five lived in a New Delhi rented house before travelling to Ayodhya.
“They had made New Delhi their base and were working under Mohammad Kari, an area commander of Lashkar in Kashmir,” he said.
The Press Trust of India news agency, quoting unidentified police sources, said the slain rebels spoke Sindhi or Baloch, dialects used in some regions of Pakistan.
Singh said the two gun-runners in Kashmir were picked up on a tip-off from Indian intelligence agencies in two villages in the Mendhar area of Kashmir’s Poonch border district.
“From Naseem we learnt that a cavity was made in his car and explosives were kept in it before the vehicle was moved to Panipat (town). Beyond that point someone else drove the car to Ayodhya and we are trying to track him down,” Singh said.
The drivers of the vehicles were traced through satellite phone calls they made after the weapons delivery.
Police in Kashmir said the alleged associates transported arms and ammunition to the militants at Ayodhya in two jeeps, one of which was exploded as a diversion during the attack.
“We are trying to work out how the arms and ammunition was carried to Ayodhya from Mendhar past security officials,” an official said in Jammu. “They must have had to cross at least three to four state borders.”
The Indian zone of the Himalayan state of Kashmir is in the grip of a nearly 16-year-old insurgency that has left more than 44,000 people dead by official count. Separatists say the toll is twice as high.