AHMEDABAD // The western Indian state of Gujarat was placed on high alert on Sunday after officials said they received intelligence reports that around 10 suspected militants from Pakistan had entered the state.
Policemen checked cars and buses on highways and at the entrance of major cities and towns, said Gujarat’s home minister, Rajnikant Patel, adding that around 25 members of India’s elite national security guards (NSG) have reached Gujarat to beef up security.
Security was also stepped up in the Indian capital of New Delhi, with additional police and paramilitary troops assigned to shopping malls, railway stations and other crowded places.
Some fishing boats have been found abandoned near the coast over the past few days, raising suspicions that militants from Pakistan had entered Gujarat by sea, Mr Patel said.
“A team of NSG arrived in Gujarat last night following the terror alert. The state has been put on high alert,” said Gujarat state police director-general PC Thakur.
TV footage showed security men frisking visitors outside hotels, cinema and malls.
In a notification issued by the Gujarat home department, all police chiefs were asked to return to duty immediately and report suspicious activity.
Mr Thakur said central authorities feared that members of banned militant outfits such as Lashkar-i-Taiba may have infiltrated through Kutch district, which has a land and sea border with Pakistan.
India blamed Lashkar-i-Taiba for the 2008 Mumbai attacks in which 166 people were killed. Pakistan’s government has announced a ban on the group but a number of its leaders, including Hafiz Saeed and Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, remain free.
Gujarat, the home state of prime minister Narendra Modi, was also rocked by a series of bombings in 2008 which killed 45 people.
In 2002, the state was torn by religious riots which killed more than 1,000 people, most of them from the minority Muslim community.
* Agence France-Presse
