India promises safe Commonwealth Games

The embattled chief organiser of the Delhi Commonwealth Games told AFP yesterday that the event would be safe and that a weekend gun attack in the Indian capital was not related to the showpiece.

“Yesterday’s shooting was a one-off incident which was not targeted at the Games,” said Suresh Kalmadi, organising committee chairman for the event, which will see 7,000 athletes and officials in the New Delhi from October 3-14

“All security measures for the athletes and tourists who will be coming for the Games are well taken care of. I assure that,” he added in an interview with AFP.

Two attackers on a motorbike shot and wounded a pair of Taiwanese sightseers outside New Delhi’s main mosque on Sunday in an attack that was claimed by an Indian Islamist group.

The assurance came hours after Australia in a stark travel warning said there was a “high risk of terrorism” during the event.

Games chief Kalmadi said all participants – 71 countries and territories mainly from the former British empire – were satisfied with security arrangements.

“All Commonwealth Games countries understand the security arrangements made by us in India are satisfactory and security advisors of various countries in India too are satisfied with the arrangements,” Kalmadi said.

The Indian police meanwhile said they had intensified security and were probing the weekend attack, which was claimed by the Indian Mujahideen militant group in an email sent to several media outlets late Sunday night.

New Delhi police spokesman Rajan Bhagat, speaking to AFP, rejected the group’s claim.

“No organised gang or group is involved. The email which BBC and India TV received is not linked to the blasts, it has no signs of being the handiwork of the Indian Mujahideen,” Bhagat said.

The Times of India said police had shut down public parking lots at 470 locations in New Delhi as a precaution against possible attacks during the Games, India’s biggest sporting event since the Asian Games in 1982.