News / India

India’s Gujarat on high alert over militant infiltration concerns

Sunday, 06 March 2016 9:51 AM [ Last Update: Sunday, 06 March 2016 9:49 AM ]

Indian security personnel stand alert on a road leading to the Pathankot Air Force Station on January 3, 2016. ©AFP

India has deployed elite security forces to Gujarat amid concerns over the infiltration of a group of militants from Pakistan into the country’s westernmost state, police say.

Gujarat police chief P.C. Thakur told AFP on Sunday that security has been stepped up at all major installations in the coastal state.

“A team of NSG (National Security Guard) arrived in Gujarat last night following the terror alert. The state has been put on high alert,” he said.

The development came after Pakistan’s National Security Adviser Nasir Khan Janjua informed his Indian counterpart, Ajit Doval, that some 10 militants had entered Gujarat.

The Gujarat Home Department has issued a notification, asking all top police chiefs to return to duty immediately and report any suspicious activity. Television footage showed Indian security personnel frisking visitors outside public venues.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Thakur said authorities feared that members of Pakistan-based militant groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) may have crossed through Gujarat’s Kutch district, which has a land and sea border with Pakistan.

India blames LeT for the November 2008 terror attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai, which left 166 people dead.

Nine of the gunmen were killed during the four-day assaults. The only surviving assailant was executed in India in November 2012.

The Pakistani government has announced a ban on LeT.

Gujarat, the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, was rocked by religious riots which killed more than 1,000 people, most of them from the minority Muslim community, back in 2002.

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