Temple Seige Ends, Terrorists Killed

Gandhinagar, Gujarath, Sept. 25 2002 (INS News) -- All the terrorists who stormed Gandhinagar temple in Gujarath firing indiscriminately and killing scores of innocent people, have been gunned down by the elite National Security Guard commandos. With this, the 12 hour operation by National Security Guard (NSG) commandos has ended.

Announcing the end of the operation,Gujarath Inspector General, Pramod Kumar said one NSG cammando and two Gujarat police men were also killed.The three terrorists were in the age group of 22 to 25 Mr. Kumar said

Leaflets of an outfit named 'Tehrik-e-Kasak' were found from one of the slain militants, NSG officials said. The officials informed the Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani about the recovery of the leaflets but did not give details.

Congress Reaction

Indian National Congress President Sonia Gandhi has offered cooperation to the Government of India for a joint strategy to fight terrorism, adding that the country heaved a sigh of relief this morning when the ultras, who had stormed the Swaminarayan temple, were killed.

Sonia told reporters that the Congress bandh call given was to express solidarity with the devotees who had undergone the trauma.

She said her party expresses deep gratitude to the state police and central security force for carrying out the operation successfully.

"From the very beginning, we have offered support to every single step the government is taking to fight terrorism", she said, referring to the party's cooperation with the government to fight terrorism.

"We are all one on this", she added. As a message to the people of Gujarat, the Congress president said peace should be maintained at any cost.

Similar to Parliament Attack

External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha today drew a similarity between attack on the Swaminarayan temple in Gandhinagar and December 13th attack on Parliament by Pak-based Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) and Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) terrorists.

Talking to media Sinha said that it was clear from the terrorists style of operation and tactics that yesterday's attack was in line with similar past incidents including the attack on Parliament, J&K Assembly, US Consulate at Kolkata and the Kaluchak massacre in Jammu.

The investigations had established that all these past incidents had a hand of Pakistani terrorists belonging to the JeM and LeT, Minister said. He said that the investigation into yesterday's incident was still going on and the mystery behind the terrorists who carried it out would soon be unravelled.

Kerala Reaction

The Kerala State Chief Minister A.K. Antony condemned the terrorist attack on temple in Gujarat, in which scores of innocent devotees were killed.

Speaking to the press Antony said that all should condemn the attack. He hoped that the incident would not trigger off violence in other parts of the country.

The Chief Minister informed that all 'possible precautions' have been taken by the government to avoid untoward incidents in Kerala in the light of protests organised by the VHP on Wednesday and Thursday. He appealed to all sections to maintain peace and harmony.

-- Sam Asharaf - South Asia Correspondent in Trivandrum, India
-- To respond to this story or post a follow up e-mail editor@insnews.org