NEW DELHI, Dec 13: Five suspected Muslim militants and seven Indian security personnel were killed in a botched attempt to blow up the Indian parliament on Thursday, witnesses and police said. Since the incident coincided with the visit of the Afghan Interim Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah, to Delhi, there was some speculation in official circles that the attack may have had foreign origins.

Kashmir’s All Parties Hurriyat Conference condemned the attack and sought an inquiry to ascertain who might be involved. A spokesman for the Pakistan-based Jehad Council for Kashmiris was quoted on an Indian TV channel as distancing himself from the shootout. President Pervez Musharraf, in a message to Vajpayee, expressed his shock and conveyed his condolence to the families of the dead Indian personnel.

Indian President K.R. Narayanan who was present at a meeting of SAARC writers to give his inaugural address, was whisked away by his security guards as soon as the news of the attack came in. Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee said the attack by six unidentified gunmen, of whom one is believed to have escaped, would be given a decisive response.

“Now the fight against terrorism has reached its last phase. We will fight a decisive battle to the end,” Vajpayee said observing that a parliament representing a billion people had accepted the challenge posed by terrorists.

Similar comments by other ministers raised fears of a stepped up standoff with Pakistan, although senior analysts said there were no plans to engage Islamabad in a conflict at this stage.

“We will liquidate the terrorist and those who sponsor them,” Home Minister Lal Krishan Advani told reporters after a cabinet meeting.

However, there were calmer words from others. Asked if he saw an India-Pakistan war ahead after the attack, Prabhu Chawla, editor of the usually pro-government India Today magazine said: “No, because Pakistan is on the defensive and would not risk a war at this stage.”

Troops were called out to guard vital installations and government buildings, including the British-built Parliament House. This was the building from where Jawaharlal Nehru had announced India’s Independence in 1947 in his stroke-at-midnight speech. The remains of a suicide bomber were now splashed near the portico of that parliament’s main entrance. Another was shot by security guards as he rushed towards the entrance used by the prime minister, who was apparently not present in parliament when the attack happened.

Police officials said the car in which the gunmen had driven past the outer gate, the first checkpoint at the highly-guarded building, was laden with enough RDX to blow up half the building. The rigged car was being defused till late into the night. The shootout climaxed outside the main circular building housing the two chambers of parliament where it lasted for about 30 minutes. In the final analysis it was not yet clear whether the objective of the gunmen was to blow up the building, or to kill one or more of the parliamentarians and ministers or simply to stage a dramatic attack to make a point.

A parallel point of view doing the rounds in opposition ranks was that the attack had similarities with the notorious Reichstag Fire in which the German parliament building was set on fire, by either the Nazis or by a deranged Dutch communist on February 27 1933. On February 28 the newly inaugurated Chancellor Adolf Hitler declared a state of emergency that lasted all the way through the war. An election that followed a month later was used to vote out the parliament.

Indeed, the Indian parliament was discussing an anti-terrorist law when the attack happened. For the fourth consecutive day the opposition had immobilized both the houses and had forced a day-long adjournment minutes before the militants drove in. Most of the opposition parties are determined not to allow the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance to become law. They said Thursday’s attack was carried out in spite of the ordinance being in force, proving that it could not be the answer to the problem.

Since parliament was expected to resume its meeting on Friday, it is possible that the rightwing nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party will push the POTO bill before the parliament closes for its winter recess on December 21, politicians said. They stressed that the opposition on its part would not like to fritter the advantages from a new defence scandal in which it has been targeting Defence Minister George Fernandes for buying spurious coffins at an inflated price for Indian soldiers killed in the Kargil area. All these elements will help one side or the other in the ensuing state elections.

Former Defence Minister Mulayam Singh, who has a major stake in the elections in Uttar Pradesh, said he was amazed that the government that had publicly anticipated Thursday’s attack for the past few weeks, had not taken measures to stop a car with a fake license number and with men having fake identity papers from driving in brazenly. Others blamed the security lapse on Delhi’s VIP culture that discourages security personnel from daring to ask important-looking people for their identifications even in high security zones.

“The identity of these terrorists has not been officially established, but what I could make out of their looks and body, it appeared to me that they were all either Afghanis or West Asians. One of them was looking like a Kashmiri,” said Chawla who was allowed to visit the spot after all the journalists were taken out of the building. “They came in an Ambassador car and entered from the Vijay Chowk side of Parliament. They drove straight towards Gate No 1 and started firing indiscriminately.”

Some news channels said the attack came within twelve hours of Vajpayee speaking about the possibility of India becoming a target of terrorist attack.

Reacting to the attack, Vajpayee asserted that the battle against terrorism had entered its last phase and would be fought in a decisive manner.

Condoling the deaths of security personnel in the gun battle, Vajpayee said that they had succeeded in defeating the terrorist designs and there should be no doubt in anybody’s mind about the government’s resolve to fight terrorism.

Fernanades said the terrorists came to Parliament House in a white ambassador (DL3CJ 1527) with a blaring siren. The car, he said had both Parliament House as well as Home Ministry stickers.

Immediately, after getting off the car, the terrorists opened indiscriminate fire and one of them who apparently had explosives strapped to his body, blew himself up to cause maximum casualties.

Fernandes said under the hail of gunfire, the other terrorists rushed towards gate number 5 and 8. He said three of them were killed outside gate number 8 and one outside gate number 5.

Witnesses said it was a staccato burst of gunfire, causing commotion at its worst as the gunmen barged into the Parliament complex opening a volley of fire.

Media men doing their regular beats were caught off guard and realized the gravity of the situation as they looked down from the first floor balcony and saw Ministers, MPs and security men running helter-skelter.

As journalists were forced by the watch and ward staff to take shelter in the pressrooms, they were virtually cut off from the outside world.

Except for the sound of gunfire punctuated by some explosions and of siren-blaring ambulances, fire tenders and police vehicles, everything was left to imagination.

Only after the bodies of those killed in the gun battle were shifted to the nearby Hospital, people were allowed to leave one by one after showing their identity as there was a lurking apprehension that one of the terrorists might still be hiding inside the complex.