The Hindu : Imam Ali shot dead in Bangalore

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Sep 30, 2002

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Imam Ali shot dead in Bangalore

By K.V. Subramanya

BANGALORE SEPT. 29. A suspected ISI agent, Imam Ali, who allegedly masterminded the bomb blast at the RSS headquarters in Chennai in 1993, and four militants, including a woman, belonging to his newly-floated organisation, the Al-Mujahideen, were killed in a pre-dawn encounter with Tamil Nadu and Karnataka police here on Sunday.

Claiming themselves to be timber merchants, Ali and his four associates hailing from Tamil Nadu were staying in a house on 5th Main, 11th Cross, M.S. Ramaiah Nagar in Sanjaynagar police station limits here for the past two months. They had planned to vacate the house on Monday.

On the basis of intelligence gathered by the Tamil Nadu police, the Tamil Nadu STF commandos and the Bangalore City Armed Reserve personnel swooped on the house at about 2 a.m. To incapacitate the militants, the police lobbed a tear gas shell into the house through a window and then stormed it.

The militants, armed with an AK-47 rifle, a country-made revolver and a pistol, refused to surrender and fired at the police. When the commandos retaliated, the five militants were injured.

They were rushed to the M.S. Ramaiah Hospital where all of them were declared brought dead, the Bangalore City Commissioner of Police, H.T. Sangliana, told presspersons.

Fourteen Tamil Nadu policemen suffered minor injuries in the operation.

The others killed are Manga Basheer alias Anwar (35) of Tirunelveli, Mohammed Ibrahim (28), Seeniyappa alias Saifullah (30) and his wife, Yasmeen (30), all from Madurai district.

Preliminary investigations and telephone intercepts revealed that the group had planned to assassinate the Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani, the Union Human Resource Development Minister, Murli Manohar Joshi, and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader, Ashok Singhal. Ali's group had hatched a conspiracy to assassinate Dr. Joshi and Mr. Singhal at Allahabad in July 2002.

On Saturday, the gang had tried to kill the Tamil Nadu Additional Director-General of Police (Administration), Moorthy, in Chennai, and a businessman in Bangalore. As Mr. Moorthy was escorted by an armed constable, they abandoned their plan. It is said that the gang was nurturing a grudge against Mr. Moorthy, who was earlier IGP (Prisons).

They had also planned to vandalise temples in Tamil Nadu and Bangalore and were involved in robberies and dacoities in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Kerala.

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