ssm@cmu-ri-leg.ARPA (Sesh Murthy) (03/28/85)
Two men on a motorcycle roared up beside a Soviet diplomat's car Thursday
and pumped several shots through the right rear window, killing him
instantly, police reported. His wife, with whom he had been shopping, and
his driver were slightly hurt by flying glass.
Police identified the diplomat as V. Khitzichenko, 48, a senior
engineer in the Soviet Embassy's Economic Affairs department. Embassy
spokesman Vladimir N. Tsatsyn confirmed the identification, but in
response to later telephone calls the embassy refused to give the
victim's first name or answer questions.
The attack on Khitzichenko was the latest in a series of killings or
attempted killings of foreign diplomats in India over the past three
years.
Police Commissioner Suryakant S. Jog said that, after the driver
stopped the car, ''the motorcyclists ... pumped a couple of more
rounds from the side and the front.'' He described the assassins as
in their 20s and of unknown nationality.
Thakur Jagdish Singh, chief officer of a district police station,
said the two men fired at least six shots from automatic pistols.
Jog said Khitzichenko was hit four times - in the right temple, just
below the neck, in the chest and in the right wrist. His wife, Nina,
43, and the driver were slightly injured by flying glass treated
briefly at a hospital, Jog said.
Police described the motorcycle driver as well-built, of medium
height and 27 or 28 years of age. The other man was about the same
age, had a beard and was about 6 feet tall, they said.
Deputy Police Commissioner B. K. Gupta reported that ''witnesses
said they were not Europeans.''
No group claimed responsibility for the assassination and the motive
was not immediately clear, Jog said.
The commissioner said the Khitzichenkos, who have a son, had been in
New Delhi for two years and were returning to their home in the
embassy compound when the attack occurred at about noon.
Police are conducting a nationwide search for another Soviet
diplomat, Igor Gezha, who disappeared last Sunday while jogging in a
New Delhi park. Gezha, 37, was a third secretary in the embassy's
information department.
India has admitted many refugees from the Middle East and southwest
Asia, and terrorist activity has been a growing problem in recent
years.
Khitzichenko was the second foreign embassy official killed in five
months. British diplomat Percy Norris was shot to death in November
while riding in a car in the Arabian Sea port of Bombay.
In June 1982, a first secretary in the Kuwait Embassy was shot dead
at his residence in Delhi, a consul-general of the United Arab
Emirates was wounded in Bombay in August 1982, and Ambassador
Mohammed Ali Khourma of Jordan was seriously wounded New Delhi in
October 1983.
Police suspect Middle Eastern terrorists in those three earlier
cases, but none of the assailants has been caught.
Jog said he suspected a link between Khitzichenko's slaying and the
Gezha disappearance, but did not know what it was. ''It may be a
coincidence that both are Russians, but I would look at both as
having special significance,'' he told a news conference.
Several Indian newspapers have speculated that Gezha defected, but
Western embassies here said they had no information.
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