INDIA: A gun battle was still raging late last night between India's security forces and gunmen who stormed a crowded Hindu temple in western Gujarat state. Possibly four attackers threw grenades and shot hundreds of devotees with automatic fire.
At least 30 people, including six women and four children, have so far died in the attack on the Aksardham temple complex in Gujarat's capital Gandhinagar, about 500 miles from New Delhi.
Officials said the death toll could rise as more than 150 people were gathered for evening prayers when the gunmen struck. They were still trapped inside the temple as the shooting continued. Earlier, police had rescued about 500 people.
The deputy prime minister, Mr Lal Krishna Advani, who is also the home minister, said the exchange of fire on the roof of the 23-acre temple complex was continuing with police and paramilitary commandos cordoning off the area. Local army units had also been deployed around the besieged temple dedicated to the Swaminarain Hindu sect which is supported by millions of Gujaratis living in Britain, the US and Canada.
The Prime Minister, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee, has cut short his official visit to the Maldives in the Indian Ocean and is returning home to Delhi today.
National Security Guard commandos trained in anti-terrorist operations have been flown from Delhi to the temple, one of Gujarat's largest. Security officials said the attack in Gandhinagar, Mr Advani's parliamentary constituency, was a "direct challenge" to the authority of the Hindu nationalist-led coalition.
Mr Advani said the terrorists, wearing police uniforms, arrived in a car at the temple a mile away from the office of the state's chief minister, Mr Narendra Modi. Firing indiscriminately, they jumped over a low wall, shot a woman, a child and a temple office bearer, all of whom died on the spot.
The attackers then threw three grenades, two of which exploded, killing several other worshippers. They continued firing as they made their way to the temple roof.
Nobody has claimed responsibility for the attack but Mr Advani, who has called for restraint, has hinted at Pakistani involvement. Federal intelligence officials said the assailants belonged to the Pakistan-backed Lashkar-e-Taiba (Army of the Pure) militant group which is fighting Kashmir's 13-year-long civil war for an independent Islamic state.
"This incident will further raise sectarian tensions in Gujarat," according to an independent MP, Mr Kuldip Nayar, who returned from the troubled state last week. It would not only pose a law and order problem, he added, but would further create a divide between the Hindu and Muslim communities.
Gujarat was hit by the country's worst religious conflict in a decade earlier this year after 59 Hindus were burned to death by a Muslim mob, sparking reprisals in which at least 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, died.
The National Human Rights Commission severely indicted Gujarat's Hindu nationalist government for its lack of compliance with the rule of law. It declared that it trusted neither Mr Modi's explanation on why the violence occurred and continued nor its inability to prosecute the guilty Hindu mobs which roamed freely, killing and terrorising at will.
The second of four rounds of voting to elect a new assembly in war-torn Jammu and Kashmir state passed off peacefully yesterday. Election commission officials said nearly 40 per cent of around 2.2 million voters exercised their franchise in 28 seats.
