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| Sunday, 29 September 2002 |
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Indian police question temple attackers' taxi driver AHMEDABAD, India, Sept 28 (Reuters) Police in the western Indian state of Gujarat said two men detained for questioning over this week's attack on a Hindu Temple admitted taking the gunmen to the massacre site. "The two have identified the photographs of attackers shown to them," said a statement issued late on Friday by Gujarat's director general of police, K. Chakravarthy. "They have also identified the dead bodies of the attackers," he said. Two gunmen entered the Hindu temple in Gandhinagar, the capital of Gujarat, and shot dead 28 people on Tuesday before being killed by the police. Chakravarthy said investigations showed the attackers arrived at a railway station in Ahmedabad, Gujarat's main city, between 2.00 p.m. and 3.00 p.m. (08.30 GMT and 09.30 GMT) on Tuesday. One of the two men detained by investigating authorities was the driver of the taxi and the other was the owner, he said. The pair, both Hindus, had dropped the attackers at the temple from the railway station for a 120 rupees ($2.48) fare. A senior Home Ministry official in New Delhi on Friday declined to comment on a Press Trust of India report that the two Muslims who attacked the temple were Pakistanis. The news agency said one of the gunmen was from Lahore and the other from Attock, west of the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. Chakravarthy's statement did not refer to the nationality of the attackers and said investigations were continuing. Pakistan has condemned the attack and denied it had anything to do with the raid. Investigators said letters found on the gunmen said the raid was to avenge the killing of hundreds of Muslims in a wave of communal violence that swept Gujarat in February and March. The gunmen, armed with automatic weapons and hand grenades, were killed by Indian commandos after a night-long siege of the Akshardham Temple. Indian investigators said they believed the two attackers, belonged to a previously unknown group, Tehrik-e-Kasas or Movement for Revenge. |
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