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High alert ahead of Independence Day
Thousands of security personnel patrolled New Delhi streets on Saturday as India went on high alert ahead of celebrations early next week marking the 58th anniversary of independence from Britain.
Thousands of security personnel patrolled New Delhi streets on Saturday as India went on high alert ahead of celebrations early next week marking the 58th anniversary of independence from Britain.
The Red Fort, a 17th-century Mughal-built complex where Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will deliver his second Independence Day address on Monday, was sealed off as commandos carried out mock drills against possible attacks.
Police in plain clothes and snipers were deployed on high rises near the fort complex with all houses and other buildings within a three-kilometre radius of the Red Fort "sanitised" over the weekend, a police spokesman said, referring to police checks of the premises.
Armed police set up roadblocks in the city Saturday, conducting random checks on all types of vehicles -- cars, small and big trucks.
The city's borders with neighbouring states would be sealed on Sunday, the police spokesman said.
The security measures came in the wake of intelligence reports that several terrorist outfits -- the pan-Islamic terrorist groups Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Taiba and Sikh insurgents -- could target the celebrations, news reports, quoting unidentified home ministry officials, said.
Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Taiba were blamed for a December 2001 attack on the Indian parliament in New Delhi that nearly set off a war with rival Pakistan.
"The police are scouring the city for a team of 20 men who they believe have been assigned the task of staging an attack on August 15," the report said, citing unnamed intelligence sources.
"These men are part of the 22-member suicide squad trained by the Babbar Khalsa International," it added.
In Kashmir, meanwhile, where troops are battling a deadly insurgency against New Delhi's rule, search operations were intensified ahead of Independence Day, observed as "black day" by Islamic rebels and separatists.
"We've intensified search operations to keep terrorists at bay," a paramilitary officer in Srinagar said.
Tight security was also imposed in the revolt-hit northeast.
