Airport crew on toes after threat

An aircraft hijack threat to seek Afzal's release puts airports on alert, report Sobhana K and Sidhartha Roy.

Security has been stepped up at airports across the country after intelligence inputs warned that Pakistan-based terrorists could hijack an aircraft to Bangladesh.

The warning suggested that terrorists might attempt the hijack to seek the release of Mohammed Afzal Guru, sentenced to death in the 2001 Parliament attack case.

Anti-hijacking measures and multi-layered security arrangements were put in place by the Central Industrial Security Force, which is in charge of the airport security, though additional personnel have not been deployed.

The CISF said the intelligence warning, which came on Thursday night, was routine. The force has increased patrolling and manual frisking of passengers at the Delhi airport. Passengers' baggage will be thoroughly screened. No flight has been delayed due to the alert, CISF personnel said, but passengers have been advised to report earlier for their flights.

"We have increased the manual frisking, but there is no additional CISF personnel on the grounds. There is no need for the passengers to panic, we are trying to cause minimum inconvenience to the passengers," said the CISF spokesperson.

The alert comes exactly a month after several airports in the south received a threat, allegedly from Al-Qaeda, that the Chennai airport will be attacked by it as was done in Thailand.

An anonymous letter had also warned of similar attacks in Tiruchirapalli, Madurai, Coimbatore, Thiruvananthapuram and Kochi airports, after which all the airports were put on alert.

Email Sobhana K: sobhana.k@hindustantimes.com
Email Sidhartha Roy: sidhartha.roy@hindustantimes.com

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