From correspondents in Delhi, India, 06:31 PM IST

Hours after the Delhi Police claimed to have caught the mastermind behind the Sep 13 serial bombings in the capital in a dramatic shootout, hundreds of people, mostly Muslims, roamed the narrow bylanes of south Delhi's Jamia Nagar - angry and frankly sceptical of the claims.

As a loudspeaker from a nearby mosque issued appeals for calm and thousands of security personnel trawled the area near the Jamia Milia University, people spilled out into the streets shouting anti-police slogans and alleging that the bodies had been planted in the fourth floor apartment for the 'fake encounter'.

The media also came in for flak after some channels wrongly reported that the terrorists were hiding in the mosque.

The tension was palpable, long after the half hour shootout which ended in two terrorists, including the suspected mastermind of the Sep 13 blasts Atif, being killed, one being held and two managing to escape from the warren that is Batla House in Jamia Nagar.

S.A.R. Geelani, the Delhi University lecturer who was acquitted in the Deceember 2001 parliament attack, demanded a judicial probe into the shootout and said: 'People have been harassed in the area for a long time. It is not something new. Whenever something happens, this area is the first target being a Muslim one.'

That most could not catch sight of the bodies of the two terrorists who had been killed added to the suspicion.

Furious with the police for not showing the face of the terrorists and wrapping the bodies in a blanket, Faisal Khan, a resident of the area, asked: 'Why didn't they show us the faces? If they were students or people from the area we could have recognised them.'

R. Abid, another resident, wondered how anybody could escape: 'See the area for yourself. How can anybody run away in this crowded locality amid such huge police deployment.'

The scepticism found wide echo.

Jamia University lecturer Fariyad, who lives just behind the L-18 apartment where the suspected terrorists were said to be hiding, told IANS: 'I don't know whether they were terrorists or students. But one thing is for sure. I heard only one kind of bullet sounds. It seemed the firing was only from one side. However, nothing can be confirmed as yet.'

Saleemuddin, a local, fumed: 'The truth is in front of us. Everybody is trying to malign Muslims. They are here because this is a Muslim dominated locality.'

(Staff Writer, © IANS)