Lending credence to the Bangalore police's belief that two or three terrorists could have taken part in the attack at the Indian Institute of Science, an eyewitness on Saturday said she saw 'a few people' with guns running away soon after the incident.

Professor C S Lalitha, a reader in a college in Delhi who accompanied slain retired Professor M C Puri, recounted with horror the events that unfolded on that fateful night when terrorists struck the premier institute where an international seminar was underway.

"We (myself, Pankaj Gupta and Prof Puri) were walking towards the seminar hall when we suddenly heard crackers. But Prof Puri said it was firing and asked all of us to lie down," she said, adding the firing went on for about five minutes and resumed later after a short pause.

"When the firing stopped I dared to look at the gate. I saw a few people running away with long guns," Lalitha told CNN-IBN news channel.

"I got up and the first person I saw was Prof Puri lying a pool of blood. I didn't know what to do. Some others got up and I knew they were safe. But Prof Puri was not," she said.

Puri was immediately taken to a hospital. "I was holding his hands and asking him to get up but he would not respond. I think he may have passed away by then," Lalitha said, tearfully. She added that doctors at the hospital tried to revive Puri but failed.