India High Noon

For Viktor Khitrichenko, 48, a senior engineer in the economics section of the Soviet embassy in New Delhi for the past two years, last Thursday began ordinarily enough. The Indian chauffeur took the diplomat and his wife shopping, and then began driving back to the embassy. It was noon when the driver steered the off-white, Soviet-built Volga onto Satya Marg, an expansive boulevard in the heart of the capital's exclusive Chanakyapuri diplomatic enclave.

Suddenly two men on a motorcycle appeared behind the car, and the man on the back of the bike fired a pistol through the Volga's rear window. The panic- stricken chauffeur jammed on the brakes, allowing the gunman to pump more bullets through a side window of the car. Khitrichenko was hit four times--in the head, chest, neck and wrist; less than an hour later he was pronounced dead at Lohia Hospital. His wife and the driver sustained minor injuries from flying glass.

Indian intelligence officials said they suspected the involvement of a "professional hit team" from the Middle East. Police questioned known activists among the 15,000 Afghans who live in New Delhi in an attempt to uncover a possible link between the Khitrichenko shooting and Afghan anger over the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi ordered law-enforcement officials to spare no effort in the search for the assassins. Said a spokesman for the Ministry of External Affairs: "We strongly condemn this shocking crime against a representative of a country with which we have the friendliest of relations."

India's diplomatic community has been the target of at least three other violent attacks over the past three years. In June 1982 the first secretary of the Kuwaiti embassy was shot and killed in his home in New Delhi. Then, in October 1983, Jordan's Ambassador survived a shooting outside his residence in the capital. Last November, Percy Norris, the British deputy high commissioner, was murdered while on his way to work in Bombay. No suspects have been charged in any of the attacks.

The fate of another Soviet diplomat in New Delhi also raised concern last week. On March 17, Igor Gezha, 37, a third secretary, vanished near Lodi Gardens, where he customarily jogged early in the morning. Indian police wondered if Gezha, who was known to have an avid interest in Hinduism, might have defected and joined a religious organization. They also did not rule out a possible connection with the Khitrichenko shooting. Early this week it was announced that Gezha had defected to the United States embassy in New Delhi where he was granted political asylum.