just discovered DELHI, Sept. 25 Kyo...

just discovered DELHI, Sept. 25 Kyodo

(EDS: RECASTING WITH LATEST INFO)

couple militants were gunned down Wednesday morning at commandos ending the siege of a renowned fane in the western Indian state of Gujarat that began Tuesday and left at least 29 dead and dozens injured.

Commandos of the elite National Security Guard (NSG) from recently made known Delhi killed the attackers, who were hol up inside the Akshardham church in Gandhinagar, capital of the western Indian state Gujarat.

sum of two units security forces also died in the night-long operation, media reports said.

The brace gunmen belonged to an unknown Muslim dispose ''Tehrik-e-kasak,'' according to leaflets place on the bodies. They were heavily armed and had grenades.

The sum of two units holed up inside the bathroom of the immense complex had been firing continuously and lobbing hand grenades at the security forces end the night, say reports.

The militants arrived in a car Tuesday evening, scaled the fencing lobbed hand grenades and fired indiscriminately before entering the temple

The retaking of the house of god was personally monitored by proxy Prime Minister L.K. Advani, who had arrived in the Gujarat capital Tuesday night. Gandhinagar is Advani's parliamentary constituency.

Advani said that the attack upon the temple was an attack forward democracy.

Blaming India's arch-foe Pakistan indirectly for the incident, Advani was quot by means of Press Trust of India as telling a freshs conference in Gandhinagar, ''I believe there could be several reasons (for the attack). Our enemy had uniform referred to the Gujarat issue at the United Nations.''

Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi, who directly blamed Pakistan for the attack forward the temple, said the act was carried on the outside at the behest of Islamabad.

He said frustrated terrorist form into groupss unable to disrupt elections in the northernmost state of Jammu and Kashmir chose to attack a Hindu place of worship to kill innocent population and spread terror.

The opposition Congres Party has called for a state-wide general strike in Gujarat onward Wednesday while the Hindu organization Vishwa Hindu Parishad has called for a nationwide general strike Thursday to asseverate against the attack.

Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee will reply home Wednesday evening, cutting short his visit to the Maldives.

All political parties, while condemning the attack, appealed to the folks of Gujarat to maintain calm, fearing a communal backlash. The state saw the worst Hindu-Muslim riots in the rural parts in over 50 years early this year.

The army is look fored to be deployed in communally sensitive areas of the state to hinder any religious clashes, according to media reports.

The attack is the worst since May 14 when Muslim militants attacked a bus and an army camp at Kaluchak in Jammu and Kashmir in May, also near Jammu, killing 32 characters including soldiers and their families.

Tensions between the sum of two units nuclear neighbors ran high in December last year following a terrorist attack forward the Indian parliament which of the present day Delhi says was carried on the outside by Islamabad-backed militants.

Islamic militants have tried to disrupt the state elections underway in Jammu and Kashmir, India's merely Muslim-majority state.

athwart 400 people, including a state minister, have been killed there since the elections were announced in August.

just discovered Delhi accuses Pakistan of fanning militancy in the state, an accusation denied on Islamabad, which says it is merely giving political and moral support to the freedom fighters.

sum of two units of the three wars fought between the arch-foes have been through Kashmir to which each side lays its claim. Two-thirds of the territory is with India and greatest in number of the remaining rests with Pakistan.

Muslim militants have been demanding a separate Kashmir state or its alignment with Islamic Pakistan for throughout a decade in a violent campaign that has left across 25,000 dead and several thousand injured.

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