November 4, 2002	Monday	Sha’aban 28,1423

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NEW DELHI, Nov 3: Two men said to be planning an attack on a crowded shopping complex ahead of a Hindu festival in New Delhi were shot dead in an encounter with police on Sunday, witnesses said.

One policeman was injured in the shootout.

Witness said police were looking for a third man they suspect to have been around at the Ansal Plaza complex, who they feel kept a watch outside after his colleagues entered the basement car park in the complex where they were killed in an encounter with the waiting policemen.

“We had information 12 days ago that Lashkar terrorists would attack a busy place in Delhi,” one police official said. “We laid a trap for them in the basement and when they drove in they were killed by the boys.”

Another police official claimed the two men were planning “to fire indiscriminately on the crowd”.

TV channels were at variance on certain essential facts, with some claiming that the men belonged to the banned Lashkar-i-Taiba group and another naming as a yet unknown Lashkar-i-Mohammad group. Some reporters on the spot claimed the suspected terrorists came in a white car, while others said the car was red.

One TV channel quoted Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishan Advani as saying that the two men “could be Pakistanis” and that they may be from Lashkar-i-Taiba or Jaish-i-Muhammad.

The encounter happened at 7:30pm when the complex was packed with shoppers.

Hundreds of people were doing Diwali-eve shopping when the gunbattle with the sleuths of the special cell of Delhi police erupted. Two AK-47 assault rifles were recovered from the slain militants, reports said.

The area around the Ansal Plaza was cordoned off as police searched for more suspects.

Deputy commissioner of police (Special Cell) Ashok Chand told reporters that the duo, travelling in a white Maruti car, opened fire on a police team, which tried to intercept them.

“No civilian has been injured,” he said.

Police officials were quoted as saying they had prior information about the movement of the terrorists so they had laid traps at different places.