Nationwide terror alert ahead of New Year

NEW DELHI: Ahead of the New Year, the Home Ministry has sounded a country-wide terror alert, especially for Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Goa and Bangalore, after getting intelligence inputs that Pakistan-based group Lashkar-e-Taiba was planning to strike.

The Centre asked all the states to tighten security by deploying additional forces in all sensitive locations to prevent any terror attack.

The police of Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Goa and Bangalore have been put on high alert and specific instructions have been issued for taking all possible steps to foil any attempt by LeT terrorists to disturb peace, official sources said.

The intelligence inputs suggested that LeT teams have already entered Mumbai and Ahmedabad and may strike at any time. The inputs also suggested that the terrorists may try to target one of the properties of the Taj group of hotels in Mumbai.

The software hub Bangalore and tourists paradise Goa are also high on the list of terrorists.

Security forces have already launched "house-to-house" searches in some specific areas in Mumbai. Additional forces have been deployed in all sensitive and crowded places, including markets, religious places, bus and railway stations.

Both Mumbai and Ahmedabad had faced several terrorist attacks in the past including the November 26, 2008 strike in the commercial capital and September 25, 2002 attack on the Akshardham temple in the Gujarat capital.

Terrorists had attacked Bangalore's Indian Institute of Science on December 29, 2005 that killed a senior academician while on July 25, 2008 six subsequent blasts killed 3 persons and injured 20 others in the same city.