Indian police kill suspects in Calcutta shootings Â

Indian authorities claimed yesterday that they killed two Pakistanis involved in a drive-by shooting at the American Centre in Calcutta last week – an incident that India had characterised as a terrorist attack.

The suspects died after police surrounded a house in a mainly Muslim quarter of the city of Hazaribagh, about 400km (250 miles) north-west of Calcutta, early yesterday.

Detective Inspector General A K Sinha said the two men opened fire when their house was encircled. They tried to steal away but were shot dead in the ensuing gun battle.

Another senior police officer claimed that the two men had confessed to their involvement in last Monday's attack before dying.

There was no independent corroboration of the Indian claims, which seem certain to increase the mistrust and tension that are already rampant between India and Pakistan, with the armed forces of each country in the highest state of mobilisation on either side of the common border.

American officials have yet to decide whether the Calcutta attack, in which five policemen died, was actually a terrorist attack or merely a violent crime.

One explanation refers to it as revenge by Aftab Ansari for the killing by Indian police of one of his henchmen in custody. Ansari, a Dubai-based Indian gangster, has already claimed responsibility.

Soon after last week's attack, Lal Krishna Advani, India's Home Minister, said that Pakis- tan's military intelligence agency, ISI, was involved in the atrocity, a claim rejected by the Pakistani government.

Yesterday one of Mr Advani's subordinates, Kamal Pande, head of the Home Ministry's bureaucracy, said the killing of the two men in Hazaribagh confirmed the ISI connection.

"A new trend is emerging in terms of direct involvement of Pakistani nationals in terrorist activities in India," he said, adding that until now the ISI policy was to use Indian nationals as proxies.

The two dead men were later named as Mohammed Idris, alias Mohammed Zaheed, and Salim (only one name was released).

Police say that both men were linked to Ansari, their main suspect as mastermind of the Calcutta incident.

Meanwhile, Pakistan said that Indian troops fired mortars, small arms and four anti-tank shells across the Line of Control, the de facto border between Indian and Pakistan.

The Pakistan army claimed it had "retaliated swiftly, causing considerable damage to enemy positions".