Gandhi Incident Brings Police Shake-up

Several senior police officials were suspended Thursday, hours after what appeared to be an attempt to assassinate Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi by a man disguised as a soldier and carrying a homemade handgun.

Gandhi, 42, the son of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who was assassinated two years ago this month, was not injured in the attack early Thursday. But government spokesman Rammohan Rao announced that “some officials of the Delhi police directly responsible for the security arrangements” have been suspended.

Among them, according to the Press Trust of India, a news agency, was Gautam Kaul, the commissioner of police for security.

TV Reassures Nation

The prime minister walked within yards of where the assailant was hidden atop a vine-covered gazebo, but the gunman did not fire until Gandhi was about 50 yards away. The assailant, who wore a military uniform and a red beret, was captured but could not be identified.

To reassure the people of the prime minister’s well-being, the government television network’s daylong coverage of a cricket match was interrupted repeatedly to show film of the prime minister made after the incident.

“There is absolutely no problem at all,” Gandhi said in both Hindi and English, smiling into the camera.

The shooting took place at a memorial service to mark the 117th anniversary of the birth of Mohandas K. Gandhi, the father of Indian independence. President Zail Singh, who was with the prime minister, also escaped uninjured, as did Gandhi’s Italian-born wife, Sonia, and several members of the Cabinet.

Six men were slightly wounded by pellets from the assassin’s weapon, a crudely made sort of shotgun.

Several eyewitnesses said three shots were fired, one nearly an hour before the gunman was seized. One said it was not until the gunman stood up and shouted “I surrender!” that the authorities discovered his hiding place.

New Delhi’s vice commissioner of police, Rajendra Mohan, said, “We did ask our boys to look everywhere when we heard that (first) single shot, but the search yielded nothing.” Police sources said security personnel mistook the shot for a motorcycle backfire.

Other witnesses told the Reuters news agency that Gandhi himself twice told security guards he had heard gunfire before they moved into action, but that could not be confirmed. Reuters also reported that Gandhi had to point in the direction from which the shots had come and that his security agents then ran helter-skelter in that direction, leaving the prime minister unguarded.

The Times of India newspaper, which issued a special edition on the assassination attempt, was critical of the prime minister’s security force. “The government will be expected to explain the lapses in the security arrangements . . . and the lessons it has drawn from them,” the newspaper said in an editorial.

The police said the gunman first identified himself as Manmohan Desai of Mathura, a city 90 miles south of New Delhi. The name is that of a well-known film producer. But later, the police said, the man gave different names, and by late Thursday his identity was still not certain.

May Be Deranged

“It is possible the man is mentally deranged,” Mohan, the police official, told reporters. “But this is something that can be established after a thorough investigation.”

Officials said the man, believed to be in his mid- to late 20s, does not seem to be associated with any extremist organization in India.

The service commemorating Mohandas Gandhi (not a relative of the prime minister), who was himself assassinated in 1948, took place at Raj Ghat, the Gandhi memorial and site of his cremation.

When the ceremony ended about 8 a.m., the president and prime minister moved toward their cars along the path that passes about 15 feet from the gazebo where the gunman had hidden.

According to officials of the Central Bureau of Investigation who were at the scene, the gunman had taken cover in the vines atop the gazebo. They said they found a water can and other items in the vines that indicated the man had spent the night there.

The gunman did not open fire as the prime minister and his party passed closest to the gazebo, but as they moved on, a shot rang out. Again no one seemed concerned. Then, about a minute later, the gunman fired again, and this time several people were hit.

One of them, Ram Charan Lal, said he turned to see the gunman standing in the vines at the top of the gazebo shouting, “I surrender!” The man was immediately surrounded by security personnel.

By this time, Gandhi, his wife and the president had entered their bulletproof autos.

The police took from the gunman a long-barrel handgun of about 12-gauge. A witness said it looked like the sort of shotgun-pistol that villagers use to shoot pigeons. Ordinarily such guns are wildly inaccurate, with a very short range.