Hotels, schools on terror alert: Intelligence agencies say Hafiz Saeed planning 26/11 rerun

The Union Home Ministry has issued an alert to all state governments asking that security at schools and public places such as malls, be heightened following intelligence inputs that militants could launch an attack similar to Mumbai’s 26/11 attacks. In fact, the intelligence input about a possible strike came a day before the Peshawar school massacre where over 160 people were killed. [caption id=“attachment_1855201” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image. PTI[/caption] According to this DNA report, the United States had shared with India specific inputs about a terror plan, leading to India’s Multi-Agency Centre (MAC), joint intelligence committee (JIC) and IB holding a discussion on the matter, wherein all security processes in the national capital were reviewed. The magnitude of the strike planned, according to various intelligence reports, is on the lines of Mumbai’s 26/11.

"(Hafeez) Saeed’s Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) and Lashkar combine’s plan is to target two unspecified hotel lobbies in New Delhi and an unspecified area on the highway between Delhi and Agra, the IB said in a report on Tuesday, based on CIA inputs."

With US President Barack Obama accepting Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s invitation to be the chief guest at the Republic Day functions in January next year, the government is taking no chances and is working with intelligence agencies across the world to thwart any such attempts by forces including Saeed’s JuD. On Wednesday, former Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf alleged that India’s RAW was behind the Peshwar attack. “Do you know who is Maulana Fazlullah? He is the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan commander. He is in Afghanistan. And I am reasonably sure that he was supported by former Karzai government and RAW to carry out terror attacks in Pakistan,” Musharraf told CNN-IBN, suggesting that the Taliban militans were provided support by Afghanistan and India to carry out the attack. What further added to the panic was a hoax call made to the Delhi  police that a bomb was planted at the Gurgaon metro station and a shopping complex, forcing the bomb squad to rush to the site. Metro services were also disrupted for over two hours. Police teams, accompanied by commandos and bomb disposal squads, evacuated and shut down the HUDA City Centre Metro station and Vyapar Kendra, a busy market complex in Sushant Lok-1. The caller had claimed that bombs were placed at these two locations. Speaking to The Indian Express_,_ a senior police official said they were taking no chances and that mock drills would be conducted across the city to check the preparedness of the force. “Police gave (owners of malls, schools, cafes) specific instructions about security checks and identity verification for all persons entering their premises. We are not taking chances with any public places where there is a possibility of such an attack,” the daily quotes the official as saying. Delhi Police officials have also been warned that a strike could be carried out on a prominent train, the Delhi-Lahore bus route, iconic government buildings including 7RCR, prominent tourist spots, offices of security agencies, embassies and malls, the Times of India reports. Meanwhile, following the government’s advisory, schools in the national capital have already begun reviewing security by displaying safety guidelines and have asked police officials to conduct mock drills at their campuses. Some even had armed commandos guarding the gates. “We do not want to create panic but security measures are being taken. We have even asked police to send personnel from the police station to the school for an interaction with the students and conducting of a security drill,” Jyoti Bose, principal of Springdales School, told TOI. In its advisory issued on Thursday, the Home Ministry has urged states to beef-up security and intelligence gathering as “such attacks can only be prevented if central and state intelligence agencies mobilise all resources and assets and focus on collecting actionable intelligence.” “It is requested that law enforcement agencies should take all measures towards hardening vulnerable places and installations. It is important to keep quick response teams (QRTs) in readiness during this period,” the advisory reads. Earlier this month, the government had imposed a nation-wide terror alert after intelligence inputs suggested that SIMI activists could target vital installations in the country. This, after five members of the banned organisation, who had fled from a Madhya Pradesh jail in 2013, were believed to have been planning to carry out terror strikes on instructions of Pakistan’s spy agency ISI. Karnataka, Maharashtra and Rajasthan have been specifically alerted and told that the terrorists could be hiding in the three states, they said. “Unn logon ko aacha project diya hain, kuch din intezar karo (These people have been given an important project. Wait for sometime),” one of the intercepted conversations of an ISI official and a handler says. The group is suspected to be involved in a bank robbery in Karimnagar (Telangana) on 1 February, 2014, blast in a Bangalore-Guwahati train at the Chennai Central station that killed a young software engineer, on 1 May, 2014 and the 10 July, 2014 explosion near Faraskhana and Vishrambag police stations in Pune. The five were jailed in June 2011 on charges of murdering policemen, attempts to murder, bank robberies and for inciting communal tension while working for terror group SIMI. With inputs from agencies