Islamic group threatens to kill Indian cricketers

A little known radical Islamic group has threatened to kill Indian cricketers when they tour Bangladesh, the Indian High Commission said on Sunday.

A little known radical Islamic group has threatened to kill Indian cricketers when they tour Bangladesh from Tuesday, the Indian High Commission said on Sunday.

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"We received a hand written fax letter on Thursday from an Islamic group called Harkat-ul-Zihad, saying that Indian cricketers will be killed if they visit Bangladesh," said high commission (embassy) spokesman Shaibal Roy Chowdhury.

Bangladeshi authorities suspect the locally-based Harkat-ul-Zihad was behind an assassination bid on leading secular poet Shamsur Rahman in Dhaka in 1998.

"In revenge for the killing of 2000 Muslims in Gujarat, we are going to kill Indian cricketers if they visit Bangladesh," Chowdhury quoted the letter as saying.

The riots in the western Indian state in early 2002, which left at least 2,000 people dead, most of them Muslims, erupted after a suspected Muslim mob set alight a train, burning to death 59 Hindu activists and other passengers.