NEW DELHI, Sept 19: Two alleged terrorists and a police inspector were killed in a fierce shootout near Delhi’s Jamia Milia Islamia on Friday.

Officials said two terrorists escaped after Delhi Police teams raided a home in the Indian capital to arrest five men suspected of being involved in bomb blasts in the city last Saturday.

One man was arrested after the raid, which sparked a gunbattle in the heavily populated Muslim neighbourhood in south Delhi. Inspector Mahesh Chandra Sharma, an “encounter specialist”, died in hospital with four bullet wounds. Two other police officers were injured in the gunfight.

Local reports suggest that the five men were believed to be part of the HuJI (Harkat-ul-Jehadi Islamia) or SIMI (Students Islamic Movement of India) groups, but there was no official confirmation of their identity.

After the firefight ended, many people in the neighbourhood crowded into the street, shouting religious slogans. “We are all against terrorism, then why were our religious places targeted?” asked one of the residents, according to The Press Trust of India.

Jamia Nagar is the neighbourhood where several suspects were arrested after the suicide attack on the Indian Parliament in December 2001.

Friday’s raid comes after last Saturday’s blasts which killed 21 and injured more than 100 people in the capital.

In recent months, India has been victim to a series of attacks. The bombs are often hidden in garbage cans in crowded public areas or attached to bicycles and auto-rickshaws.

In May, 61 people were killed in a crowded market in Jaipur. Attacks continued throughout the past summer, including a series of blasts that killed 42 people in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, in July. Two people were killed in Bangalore, India’s information technology capital, the following night.

A group called the Indian Mujahideen claimed responsibility for several of these attacks, including those in Delhi on Saturday. Some Indian officials have blamed Pakistan-based groups for the attacks.

Others say these were homegrown disaffected Muslims.