Dilip Cherian

The two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing killed a university police officer and hurled explosives at the police in a car chase and gun battle overnight that left one of them dead and his brother on the loose, authorities said Friday as thousands of officers swarmed the streets in a manhunt that all but paralysed the Boston area.
The suspects were identified by law enforcement officials and a family member as Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, ethnic Chechen brothers from Dagestan, which neighbours Chechnya in southern Russia. They lived near Boston and had been in the US for about a decade, an uncle said. Tamerlan Tsarnaev, a 26-year-old who had been known to the FBI as Suspect No. 1 and was seen in surveillance footage in a black baseball cap, was killed overnight, officials said. His 19-year-old brother — dubbed Suspect No. 2 and seen wearing a white, backward baseball cap in the images from Monday’s deadly bombing at the marathon finish line — “escaped”.
Col. Timothy Alben of the Massachusetts state police said officers would go street to street as the manhunt for the suspect continues. The law enforcement officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the unfolding case.
Authorities in Boston suspended all mass transit and warned close to 1 million people in the entire city and some of its suburbs to stay indoors as the hunt went on. Businesses were asked not to open. People waiting at bus and subway stops were told to go home. From Watertown to Cambridge, police SWAT teams, sharpshooters and FBI agents with armoured vehicles surrounded various buildings as police helicopters buzzed overhead. Authorities gave no details on how Dzhokhar Tsarnaev escaped, but said he may have been in a Honda CRV that was found later in the morning in Boston. “We believe this man to be a terrorist,” said Boston police commissioner Ed Davis. “We believe this to be a man who’s come here to kill people.” The bombings on Monday killed three people and wounded more than 180 others, tearing off limbs in a spray of shrapnel and instantly raising the spectre of another terrorist attack on US soil. The endgame — at least for Suspect No. 1 — came just hours after the FBI released photos and video of the two young men at the finish line and appealed to the public for help in identifying and capturing them. Tips came pouring in to the FBI immediately, but exactly how authorities managed to close in on the two was not immediately disclosed. The men’s uncle, Ruslan Tsarni of Montgomery village, Maryland, told AP that the men travelled here together from the Russian region near Chechnya. Chechnya was the scene of two wars between Russian forces and separatists since 1994 and the conflict spawned an Islamic insurgency that engulfed the region. “Dzhokhar, if you are alive, turn yourself in and ask for forgiveness,” he said.
The city of Cambridge announced two years ago that it had awarded a $2,500 scholarship to Dzhokar Tsarnaev, who was listed as a senior at Cambridge Rindge & Latin School, a highly regarded public school whose alumni include Matt Damon, Ben Affleck and NBA star Patrick Ewing. The White House said President Barack Obama was being briefed on developments overnight by Lisa Monaco, his assistant for homeland security and counterterrorism.
Richard DesLauriers, FBI agent in charge in Boston, said Suspect No. 2 in the white hat was seen setting down a bag at the site of the second of two deadly explosions. Authorities said surveillance tape recorded late Thursday showed Suspect No. 2 during a robbery of a convenience store in Cambridge, near the campus of MIT, where university police officer Sean Collier, 26, was shot to death while responding to a report of a disturbance, said Alben. From there, authorities said, the two men carjacked a man in a Mercedes-Benz, keeping him with them in the car for half an hour before releasing him at a gas station in Cambridge. The man was not injured. The search for the vehicle led to a chase that ended in Watertown, where authorities said the suspects threw explosive devices from the car and exchanged gunfire with police. A transit police officer was seriously injured during the chase, authorities said.
Congressman Dutch Ruppersberger said Friday in Washington that the brothers had a cache of pipe bombs, grenades and improvised explosive devices before they confronted police. In Watertown, witnesses reported hearing multiple gunshots and explosions at about 1 am Friday. Dozens of police officers and FBI agents were in the neighbourhood and a helicopter circled overhead.