Indian state on high alert amid terror fears
March 6, 2016
Police in India said they had beefed up security across the western state of Gujarat on Sunday after warnings that some 10 militants may have crept across the border from Pakistan to carry out attacks.
According to reports, nearly 200 security personnel from Dehli had been deployed to Ahmedabad, Gujarat's largest city.
"A team of NSG (National Security Guard) arrived in Gujarat last night following the terror alert," state police director-general P.C. Thakur told AFP.
Thakur said central intelligence authorities feared members of outlawed militant groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) may have entered the country through the Kutch district, which shares a land and sea border with Pakistan.
"We are on high alert and prepared to deal any situation. We have started combing operations across various locations," he said.
TV footage showed security forces patrolling highways, places of worship, hotels and shopping malls. The security alert comes ahead of Monday's Maha Shivrati, a major Hindu festival to celebrate the god Shiva.
LeT, an Islamic militant organization based in Pakistan, has been accused of carrying out the 2008 Mumbai attacks that killed 166 people. Gujarat, the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, was also hit by a series of bombings in 2008 which claimed at least 45 lives. More than 1,000 people, most of them from the state's minority Muslim community, were killed during religious riots there in 2002.
nm/ (AFP, PTI)