The December 2005 IISc shooting occurred on Wednesday, 28 December 2005 at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in the Indian city of Bangalore, killing Prof. Munish Chandra Puri of IIT Delhi and injuring four, after two or more unidentified gunmen fired at Puri and others. The state government of Karnataka declared the shooting to be a terrorist attack, making it the first such attack in Bangalore.
| 2005 Indian Institute of Science shooting | |
|---|---|
| Date | 28 December 2005 c. 7:00 p.m. (UTC+5:30) |
Attack type | shooting |
| Weapons | Type 56 assault rifle |
| Deaths | 1 (Munish Chandra Puri) |
| Injured | 4 |
| Perpetrators | Two unknown men |
Shooting
editAt around 7:00 pm local time (1:30 pm GMT), two people entered the IISc campus in a white Ambassador car. At around 7:20 pm, delegates attending the International Conference on Operations Research: Applications in Infrastructure Development, organised by the Operations Research Society of India at the JN Tata Auditorium on the IISc campus, were heading to dinner when the shooting began. A gunman, wearing black mask and army uniform, started firing indiscriminately from a rifle, thought to be a Chinese Type 56, outside the auditorium.[1][2]
Munish Chandra Puri, a Professor Emeritus at the mathematics department of the Indian Institute of Technology in New Delhi, was wounded by bullets. He died en route to hospital. Three other scientists and a lab assistant were among the injured. One of the injured was a pregnant woman, who sustained injuries to her eye. The other three injured had serious bullet injuries and underwent emergency surgeries.[2][3][4]
Investigation and trial
editThe police later recovered a Chinese made Type 56 military rifle, twelve empty cartridges, one empty magazine, five live magazines (one half-spent), two grenades, and one live hand-grenade which they defused.[5] The police surmise that the gunmen had escaped by scaling the boundary wall of the campus. No organisation claimed responsibility.[6]
The Karnataka police identified the attackers as belonging to a cell of the Pakistan-based terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). Six people were convicted in December 2011 and several others are at large including the shooter.[7][8]
In 2007, possible links arose between the shooting and Bilal Abdullah and Kafeel Ahmed, the perpetrators of two terrorist incidents that occurred in the United Kingdom that same year. Investigations were carried out to unearth these purported links.[9]
References
edit- ^ "Gunmen kill scientist in IISc Bangalore". NDTV. 29 December 2005.
- ^ a b "Terror attack at IISc, Bangalore; 1 killed, 4 injured". Rediff.com. 29 December 2005.
- ^ "Witnesses recount India gun horror". BBC. 29 December 2005.
- ^ "Massive hunt for India attacker". BBC. 29 December 2005.
- ^ "LeT hand not ruled out in Bangalore attack". Mid-Day. 29 December 2005.[permanent dead link]
- ^ T. A. Johnson (29 December 2005). "Terror hits Bangalore, target is IISc". Indian Express. Retrieved 21 January 2011.
- ^ "'Alleged Conspirator Helped IISc Shooting Prime Suspect Flee to Bangladesh'". News18. Retrieved 6 October 2018.
- ^ Staff Reporter (27 December 2015). "Ten years on, IISc. attack mastermind at large". The Hindu. ISSN 0971-751X. Retrieved 6 October 2018.
- ^ "Bangalore terror link puts IISc attack under scanner". ibnlive.com. 10 July 2007. Retrieved 10 July 2007.