Shooting in India raises tensions with Pakistan

CALCUTTA, India -- Indian officials said Tuesday an Islamic militant group based in Pakistan claimed responsibility for an attack at a U.S. cultural center in Calcutta that killed four Indian policemen and wounded 20 other people.

Both Pakistan and a representative of the group disputed India's claim, and American officials played down suggestions the attack was terrorism directed at the United States.

Since a deadly attack on Parliament in New Delhi on Dec. 13, both India and Pakistan have massed troops at their border. Pakistan offered Tuesday to ease its war footing if India first starts moving soldiers away from the border, but there was no immediate response from New Delhi. Indian officials also blamed the attack on Parliament on Pakistan-based militants.

The rivals have fought two wars over the divided province of Kashmir, which both claim in its entirety. India accuses Pakistan of supporting Islamic militants fighting for independence in the province. Islamabad denies it, and accuses mainly Hindu India of oppressing Muslims in Kashmir.

At about 6:30 a.m. Tuesday, four gunmen on motorcycles drove up to the U.S. government cultural center in Calcutta and opened fire, killing four police officers and wounding 18 officers, a pedestrian and a private security guard, state Home Secretary Amit Kiran Deb said. No Americans were hurt. The assailants fled.

Spent bullets in street

The American Center houses a library, the embassy's public affairs office, a press section and a wing for cultural programs. The center was closed Tuesday. Spent AK-47 bullets littered the street, which was guarded by hundreds of police.

India's home minister, Lal Krishna Advani, called the shooting a "terrorist attack" against U.S. and Indian interests. Indian officials said a man called police to say the Pakistan-based Islamic militant group Harkat-ul Jehad-e-Islami carried out the attack. The group's leader died in a shootout with Indian police in October.

In Kashmir, the head of Harkat denied his followers carried out the attack. "We are against terrorism of all sorts, wherever its occurs," Sheikh Muzaffar Hussain Kashmiri said.

The attack came as both FBI director Robert Mueller and President Bush's point man for counterterrorism, Ambassador at Large Francis X. Taylor, were in New Delhi. Taylor was concluding a two-day Joint Working Group on Counterterrorism, and Mueller met with senior Indian officials.