Security forces prevented a "spectacular" attack by a Pakistan-based militant group in India's capital, local police said yesterday.
Police killed two suspected members of the outlawed Jaish-e-Mohammed group in a park in New Delhi on Saturday night, hours after explosives were seized in two separate raids and three people were arrested.
The actions in the capital came after paramilitary soldiers in Indian-controlled Kashmir said they killed the Jaish-e-Mohammed head of Indian operations, Ghazi Baba, suspected of being the mastermind of an attack on India's Parliament in December 2001.
"The exact target would have been disclosed to them by Jaish headquarters a short time before the actual strike," police Joint Commissioner Niraj Kumar said, referring to the suspected militants.
"It would have been something spectacular ... symbols of national importance ..."
The police action came days after two car bombings in Bombay, India's financial centre that killed 52 people and injured 150.
Police intercepted a car in which two militants were travelling. Mr Kumar said the three detained men said during interrogation that the weapons were to be handed over to the slain militants. "Accordingly, we laid a trap. When we intercepted them, they tried to flee and were killed," he said.
-(AP)