Less than a week after the suspected terrorist attack at Bangalore’s Indian Institute of Science — that led to the killing of an academician — a similar attempt has been foiled by the police in yet another emerging IT destination in the southern part of India, Hyderabad. The city police in the capital of Andhra Pradesh, bordering Karnataka (where Bangalore is located), have claimed that suspected militants belonging to the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed were planning to target Hitec City, a technology park where most of the major IT-companies’ facilities are located.

Two suspected terrorists have been arrested in this connection and huge quantities of explosives have been recovered from them. The suspects claimed that they were planning to carry out bomb attacks, including suicide bombings, at Hitec City and the police headquarters.

Incidentally, the suspects were nabbed hours before the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh arrived in the city to inaugurate the five-day science conference beginning on Jan. 3, 2006. Indian President APJ Abdul Kalam — himself a scientist of repute — and top Indian scientists are slated to attend the conference.

The suspects were arrested on the basis of the information police received on interrogating Zahid, one of the three men arrested last month in connection with the attack on the Police Task Force headquarters in Hyderabad in October.

Police have not ruled out a link between the terrorists arrested in Hyderabad, and those who attacked the IISc in Bangalore last week.