Nine dead as gunmen open fire in street before storming police compound

Four gunmen dressed in Indian army uniforms have stormed a police station in the state of Punjab, killing seven people and injuring at least eight more. The attackers were locked in a ten-hour gunfight with security forces after holing up in residential quarters in the police compound in Dinanagar, about 20km (12miles) from the Pakistani border. Two of the gunmen were reported to have been killed. Earlier, they hijacked a car in a nearby town and fired indiscriminately on a bus and cafe, killing one person. A policeman injured in the attack said: “We were hit by a burst of gunfire suddenly. I was hit on the shoulder. They are firing indiscriminately every five minutes.”

They were dressed in army uniforms and came in a Maruti [Suzuki] car

Deputy police commissioner Abhinav Trikha

Indian army units were called in and the army’s special forces and bomb disposal units have surrounded the police compound. Columns of soldiers have taken up positions around the compound with rocket launchers. Prime minister Narendra Modi called for a high-level meeting with senior ministers on the situation and was monitoring the stand-off. Earlier, security personnel found bombs on a railway track a few kilometres away from Dinanagar – suggesting an attempted coordinated attack. A train was stopped just 200m from the spot where the bombs were found.

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