The Hindu : Front Page : IISc attack chronology

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IISc attack chronology

Chitra V. Ramani

BANGALORE: On December 28, 2005, gunmen open fire indiscriminately at delegates coming out of the international seminar of the Operational Research Society of India at J.N. Tata Auditorium, Indian Institute of Science here. Eyewitnesses claim that four to five people got off a white Ambassador car and fired at the delegates at 7.30 p.m.

The “planned attack” kills M.C. Puri, retired professor of Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi, and injures Pankaj Gupta, scientist from New Delhi; Vijay Chandra, senior scientist at the IISc; Sonia Arora, research fellow from IIT Kanpur; and Patelappa, laboratory assistant, IISc.

Police find in the vicinity an unexploded bomb, five magazines (three were fully loaded), two grenades and 11 spent bullets. Red alert is sounded all over the State after the attack.

Police say neither the IISc sought any security nor inform them about the conference in which 56 foreign delegates and 250 Indian delegates are said to be participating.

December 29, 2005

N. Dharam Singh, Chief Minister, confirms that the attack is the handiwork of terrorists.

The police discover an AK56 assault rifle, a Browning pistol, a hand-grenade, an empty magazine of an automatic rifle, a bag containing a pair of jeans and some tissue papers near the J.N. Tata Auditorium.

December 30, 2005

Police Commissioner Ajai Kumar Singh releases a portrait of a suspected attacker, prepared on inputs given by eyewitnesses.

Police say they are yet to make a breakthrough in the case. They say they were in touch with their counterparts in Rajasthan, Jammu and Kashmir, Delhi, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh.

January 5, 2006

Police team bring an accused from Chennai, said to be a preacher and native of the communally sensitive Bhatkal town in Uttara Kannada district.

Four persons are picked up for questioning by the police – two each from Kolar and Mysore districts.

Investigations reveal that the main accused, arrested in Nalgonda, visited Bangalore and some other places in the State. He is said to be in-charge of Lashkar-e-Taiba’s operations in south India. Police claim that the plan to attack the IISc and other vital installations was hatched in 2003.

January 13, 2006

The main accused undergoes two rounds of narco-analysis tests.

January 16, 2006

Police claim that they have information of the LeT’s plans to carry out explosions at Kaiga Nuclear Power Plant in Uttara Kannada district, the Alamatti reservoir in Bagalkot district and the Sharavathi power plant.

February 10, 2008

Six Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists, who were involved in the terror attacks on the IISc and the CRPF Group Centre in Rampur, arrested in Rampur and Lucknow by the Special Task Force of the Uttar Pradesh Police.

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