NEW DELHI/CALCUTTA, 23 January — Gunmen riding motorcycles shot dead four Indian police guards outside the US Cultural Center in Calcutta yesterday. No American citizen was hurt. India lost no time in blaming archrival Pakistan for the early morning shooting but Pakistan condemned the attack and denied any involvement.
Eighteen policemen, a pedestrian and a private security guard were wounded, Calcutta police said. "There were no American citizens injured and there were no US Consulate staff in the center at the time of the incident," said Gordon Duguid, chief information officer at the US Embassy in New Delhi. The shooting came less than six weeks after an attack on India’s Parliament in New Delhi triggered a dangerous escalation in military tensions with Pakistan.
Calcutta police said the gunmen, riding two motorcycles and draped in shawls, opened fire with automatic rifles around 6:30 a.m. outside the American Center, which houses the US press attaché, a trade office and a popular American library on Nehru Road, not far from the US Consulate. The attack was so quick that the guards, armed with outdate bolt-action .303 rifles, could not return a single shot.
The attack took place as the guards at the center were changing duty, Calcutta police chief Sujoy Chakraborty said, adding the gunmen had driven up with automatic weapons hidden under their large winter shawls. They fired up to 50 rounds at the security personnel standing outside the center’s main gate.
"People just started dropping to the ground," said taxi driver Mahesh Ghosh who witnessed the shooting. Pools of blood, used battle dressings, upturned chairs and pieces of clothing lay scattered on the footpath outside the building and bullet holes scarred a guard post wall.
There were several anonymous calls claiming responsibility, but the Indian Home Ministry chose to highlight one from a Dubai-based criminal, Farhan, alias Aftab Malik, who has alleged links to Pakistani intelligence and the Harkatul Jihad Islami, a Pakistan-based group fighting Indian rule in Kashmir.
"He owned responsibility and threatened that similar attacks would take place in Delhi and Gujarat," a Home Ministry official said, adding that Malik was suspected of organizing the kidnapping earlier this year of a Calcutta businessman for a 37.5 million rupee ($780,000) ransom.
Home Minister L.K. Advani condemned the attack by "armed terrorists" and voiced confidence that "we will be able to get at the source" as soon as possible.
The chief minister of West Bengal ruled out any role for the US Federal Bureau of Investigation into the attack. Asked whether the FBI might take part in investigations into the attack, communist Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharya said the Calcutta police and other domestic agencies could handle it alone.
"I have directed all investigating agencies to work together. We do not need the help of any other investigating agency," Bhattacharya told reporters.
FBI Director Robert Mueller and Francis Taylor, the US pointsman on terrorism, are both currently in India on a previously scheduled trip to discuss bilateral cooperation.
Mueller said it would be premature for him to comment on the attack. "It is too early to tell what the motivation was," he told a news conference in the heavily guarded US Embassy in New Delhi.
"I understand that there have been claims of responsibility for the attack. I also understand that the investigation is ongoing and my experience shows that making particular comments about what occurred eight hours ago is premature," Mueller said.
Pakistan swiftly condemned the shooting and rejected any suggestion that it had a role as "totally baseless." "These are totally baseless charges. As you know, Pakistan has condemned terrorism in all its forms and manifestations," Foreign Ministry spokesman Aziz Ahmed Khan told a news briefing in Islamabad.
