Three 'militants' killed in India

The car used by the suspects was riddled with bullets

Police in India say they have killed three suspected militants who were planning an attack on the headquarters of a Hindu right-wing organisation.

Officials said the militants were targeting the headquarters of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in western Nagpur city early on Thursday.

Police said the attackers belonged to an unspecified Islamic group.

The RSS is the ideological fountainhead of various Hindu groups including the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party.

Police officials told the BBC that the police intercepted the militants, who were armed with hand grenades and assault rifles, near the RSS headquarters in Maharashtra state at 0400 on Thursday.

Two policemen were also injured in the five-minute-long gun battle.

Potential target

Officials said the men, who were dressed in police uniform, came in a car and fired upon the policemen who stopped them for questioning outside the organisation's headquarters.

Nagpur police chief SDS Yadav said that security was tight at the RSS headquarters as it had always been a potential target for militants.

Security at all RSS offices in the country has been tightened after the incident, the BBC's Zubair Ahmed reports from Mumbai.

"We will be cautious. We have asked RSS offices all over the country to be on guard," RSS spokesman Ram Madhav said.

The 81-year-old RSS is India's oldest Hindu nationalist organisation with an estimated 1.3 million members.

The organisation came into existence in 1925 in Nagpur with an avowed objective to make India a Hindu nation.

Some RSS members take part in military drills and exercises - a guiding principle of the organisation is that India should be Hinduised and militarised.

Critics of the organisation say that its hardline ideology is based on intolerance towards religious minorities.

Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated in 1948 by a militant Hindu who was said to have been influenced by an RSS member.