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Date: December 30, 2005
TAMPA, FL – Members of the Hindu American
Foundation (HAF) were personally shocked by the terrorist
attack on the campus of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc)
in Bangalore, India. On December 28th, 2005, a gunman, armed
with an improvised AK-56 rifle and a grenade, indiscriminately
fired upon college faculty and students on the IISc campus.
Retired Professor Munish Chandra Puri, an Emeritus Professor
of Mathematics from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)
Delhi was fatally shot in the attack. In addition, several
others were seriously injured. The attack hit HAF close to
home as HAF leaders have been invited speakers to events on
the IISc campus in the past and has familial connections to
IISc faculty and students.
Though no responsibility for the attack has
yet been claimed, Police suspect the attack could be the work
of either the Pakistan-based outfits, Jaish-e-Mohammed (JEM)
and Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), or the Bangladesh-based Harkat-ul-Jehad-e-Islami
(HuJI) - all groups with established ties with al-Qaeda and
the Government of Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence
(ISI).
“Regardless of who the group behind
this insidious act is, the tragedy seems to indicate that
the attacker subscribes to a fanatic ideology that has little
regard for scholarship, human life or basic morality,”
said Pawan Deshpande, member of the Hindu American Foundation
Executive Council. “We hope that all parties involved
will be brought to justice.”
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