Shot at sight in nervous London

At around 10 am, anti-terrorist squads noticed an Asian youth walking in a heavy winter-jacket. On a warm summer morning, it was pretty unusual. As the police challenged him, he jumped the ticket barriers, ran down the escalators and rushed towards the train on the platform. The police managed to pin him down as he stumbled before boarding the train. One of the policemen pumped at least five bullets into his head. The man was killed on the spot.

Metropolitan police chief Sir Ian Blair said the man shot dead was ‘‘directly linked’’ to Thursday’s failed bombings. He was a threat and had to be dealt with. Later, the police confirmed that the dead man was not one of the four bombers whose pictures they had released. They had also arrested one man after the Stockwell shooting but declined comment on whether he was one of the four.

Though the police would not be drawn into speculation, there was no dearth of eyewitnesses, now called citizen reporters, eager to tell their stories to Internet websites and 24-hour TV news channels.

One of the passengers, Mark Whitby said: ‘‘I was sitting in the train, reading my paper. I heard a lot of noise, people saying, ‘get out, get down’. I saw an Asian guy run onto the train, hotly pursued by three plainclothes police officers. One of them was carrying a black handgun, it looked like an automatic. They pushed him to the floor, bundled on top of him and unloaded five shots into him. I saw the gun being fired five times into the guy. He is dead.’’

Around 11 am came the news that police had surrounded a mosque in the predominantly Bangladeshi area of Whitechapel in east London. Initial reports suggested the possibility of a planted bomb. The area was quickly sealed off. Residents were warned not to venture out of their homes. For an already strained police force, it took almost an hour to give an all-clear. Nothing was found there.

Meanwhile, the police continued the hunt for Thursday’s suspected bombers.

Detectives believed that the four bombers were part of the same gang who struck on 7/7. Prince Turki-al-Faisal, the Saudi Ambassador in London, who is also an acclaimed intelligence expert, confirmed that the latest attacks bore all the hallmarks of an al-Qaeda operation.

The dud bombs were said to have been assembled by the same gang who put together the 7/7 devices. The only difference was that this time they were smaller than the bombs used two weeks ago. As Daily Mirror put it, had ‘‘lady luck’’ not smiled on London, the deaths and devastation would have been equally horrific.

According to explosive experts, the traumatised city was saved from a grave tragedy because the bomb maker made a faulty connection between each of the detonators and its liquid explosives, dubbed Mother of Satan. Another theory is that the explosive was too unstable and that the bombs were assembled too long ago.

As the heart-stopping drama unfolded hour by hour, the police released the chilling CCTV pictures of the four suspected bombers. The bomber running away from the Oval was wearing a black jumper with a white bold inscription New York. Perhaps he intended to send a symbolic reminder of the events of 9/11. The jumper was later found in Cowley Road in Brixton not very far from the Oval.

The second bomber, a middle-aged man with a moustache standing on the top deck of the No 26 bus, was wearing a grey T-shirt with a palm tree, again a prominent symbol of the Islamic Middle East. The third man, in dark clothes, was filmed leaving Warren Street underground station. The fourth man with a heavy rucksack was seen at Westbourne Park station from where he travelled to Shepherd Bush and then ran off.

In the evening, police also cordoned off the Harrow Road and West Kilburn area to carry out extensive searches. The police are working on the theory that the bombers know they can’t hide or escape. They have to be captured before their desperation drives them to strike again.

As the confusion grows, so does the frustration. On one hand, the police is being expected to deal with the situation firmly and quickly; on the other hand, they have the delicate task of maintaining the communal peace.

The Muslim community is really terrified, jumpy and nervous. ‘‘We are getting phone calls from quite a lot of Muslims who are distressed about what may be a shoot-to-kill policy,’’ complained Inayat Bunglawala, a spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain. ‘‘I have just had one phone call saying, what if I was carrying a rucksack?’’

There is also a wider concern within the South Asian community. ‘‘If you are unshaven and a strongly built Asian youth walking in baggy jumper and jeans it doesn’t sound right in today’s environment,’’ says Deepak Malhi from Southall who himself fulfills the description.

‘‘People are confused. We may be a Pakistani or Indian, Hindu or Muslim, we all look the same and now we are given strange looks as if we are not normal people,’’ says Sudarshan Bhatia, the culture and faith representative of the Hindu Council of UK.

In a survey carried out by the Sky News, 98 per cent Muslims opposed the actions and intentions of these bombers. But then somebody asked: What about the remaining 2 per cent?