September 13, 2003	Saturday	Rajab 15, 1424

MUMBAI, Sept 12: Police on Friday shot dead the suspected mastermind of last month’s twin car bomb blasts that killed 52 people and left 150 injured in India’s commercial hub of Mumbai, officials said.

The police identified the alleged mastermind as a Muslim named Naseer and said he was killed in an encounter outside a city college.

“We had an encounter in which Naseer who we believe is the mastermind of the August 25 blasts has been shot down and along with him there was another accomplice but we as of now do not know his identity,” Mumbai’s joint police commissioner Satya Pal Singh said.

Police have so far arrested four people in connection with the explosions.

According to police, one of them, Arshad Shafique Ansari, was traumatized after seeing a woman raped and killed during last year’s communal riot between Hindus and Muslims in Gujarat state during which saw nearly 2,000 people were killed, most of them Muslims.

The Gujarat government was accused by human rights groups of turning a blind eye to vigilante attacks on Muslims.—AFP