Suicide attack on Indian parliament By Ranjit Devraj
NEW DELHI - A heavily armed fedayeen (suicide squad) attempted to storm India's parliament complex on Thursday, triggering off a firefight in which six of the attackers and six policemen were killed.
Security forces immediately sealed off the colonnaded, red sandstone parliament building where, ironically, discussions were to have begun on a new anti-terrorist bill that is being bitterly opposed as draconian.
India's Interior Minister Lal Krishna Advani, who was present in parliament, said the attackers appeared to be fedayeen of the kind that carried out the September 11 attacks in New York and Washington.
A member of the Al-Qaeda terrorist organization arrested recently in the west coast port city of Mumbai had confessed that the Indian parliament as well as other key installations were to be targeted by fedayeen attacks.
Advani said that the attack was similar to a suicide attack carried out on the Jammu and Kashmir assembly building on October 1, linked to violence in the disputed territory of Kashmir. At least 50 people lost their lives in that attack. Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was not present in the house at the time of Thursday's attack.
There was no immediate indication of who was behind the attack in a country plagued by separatist revolts, intermittent political unrest and communal violence. But if the raid was by Kashmir separatists, India could launch a counterattack across the Line of Control into Pakistani-held territory, raising the risk of a dangerous confrontation between the neighbors.
This is the first time that such an attack has been launched on the parliamentary complex. Sikh separatists assassinated prime minister Indira Gandhi in 1984. A suicide bomber killed her son, Rajiv Gandhi, who also served as a prime minister, in 1991.
Soon after the firing stopped, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pramod Mahajan said, "half a dozen militants armed with machine guns and grenades and an equal number of security personnel" had died in the exchange of fire that lasted for more than an hour. One of the attackers died after a bomb strapped to his body went off, severing his body into pieces strewn outside one of the main gates leading to the parliament building.
Attempts to evacuate the complex of at least about 150 members of parliament who were present within the complex were delayed by reports of a live bomb near one of the several entrances to the complex. Commando squads were brought in to help defuse the bomb and conduct combing operations for another militant who was believed to have escaped into the complex.
At least 25 people were injured in the gun battle and most of them were evacuated to a nearby government hospital.
The attack began at 11:15 am, soon after Lok Sabha (the Lower House of parliament) was ordered adjourned by the speaker as opposition members disrupted business demanding the resignation of Defense Minister George Fernandes over an coffin procurement scandal. Opposition leaders have also sworn to block the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance (POTO), which the government wants passed as an act during the ongoing winter session.
Asked whether he thought there had been a breach of security, Advani said, "Fedayeen attacks stem from terrorism of an extreme kind. It is a type which has even breached the Pentagon."
According to eyewitness, the attackers, dressed in black fatigues, drove through the outer barricades and opened fire and lobbed grenades when they could not pass through the inner security ring.
The home minister warned that those responsible for the attack would be made to pay a "very heavy price" and he has instructed provincial governments to be on alert.