Emeritus Professor MN Puri from IIT, Delhi, died of bullet injuries. Four other professors — Dr Pankaj Gupta, Dr Sangeeta, Dr Vijay Chandru and Dr Vijay Patelappa — were seriously injured. The injured have been admitted to a city hospital. Puri’s family came to know about the incident through a student, who had accompanied the professor to the seminar.
After the attack, a tight security blanket was thrown over the city with the 100-year-old IISc cordoned off. An AK-47 rifle, three magazines of an automatic weapon and a hand grenade were seized from the site of violence, police said. A sources said the possibility of a terrorist attack could not be ruled out given the nature of the automatic weapon used and the discovery of a grenade. Bangalore and other IT hubs are on the hit list of terror groups, including the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiyyaba.
When asked if this was a terrorist strike, Bangalore Police Commissioner Mr Ajay Kumar Singh said: "We cannot say anything at this stage. We have no information about how they (the gunmen) gained entry and who they were."
The Karnataka chief minister, Mr N Dharam Singh, called a high-level meeting of police and other officials here tomorrow to review security measures in Bangalore. The chief minister spoke to Union home minister Mr Shivraj Patil and apprised him of the incident, an official source said. Mr Singh, the source added, had directed the Bangalore Police to conduct a thorough investigation into the incident. In New Delhi Union home secretary Mr Vinod Kumar Duggal said: "As of now it’s not a terrorist attack." The Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, expressed shock at the firing. The attack at the IISc, Bangalore today came two days after Delhi Police said the Bangladesh-based terror group, Harkat-ul-Jehad, was planning to target software parks in Hyderabad and Bangalore. A senior police officer said tonight that the IISc had not been a "specific target" of terrorists.
