Indian Airports in Near Lockdown Mode after New Warnings

Warnings of more potential attacks in India have officials there sending airports into high levels of security alert. The recent attacks in Mumbai, allegedly conceived and executed by two senior leaders of a banked Pakistani militant group, may have just been a prelude to another series of airborne attacks. New warnings indicated that a potential attack would focus on three major airports in New Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai, leading to the stepped up security in airports across the country. Said India’s air force chief Fali Homi Major, "This is a warning which we have received. We are prepared as usual."

The near lockdown conditions include armed guards from India’s Rapid Deployment Force standing post at strategic positions around the airports and deploying roadblocks. Other layers of security have been added to scan more luggage than normal procedures. Said Brij Lal, a senior police official, "Passengers have been asked to pass through six-stage security checks." Officials hope that the stepped-up security, along with continued monitoring of intelligence and radio chatter, will help them to divert a potential second wave of attacks.

Evidence points to two members of the Pakistani terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba as the responsible parties for the earlier attacks on Mumbai. They are Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi and Yusaf Muzammil, both of whom are believed to be in Pakistan at present. The single gunman who survived the assault in Mumbai, Ajmal Amir Kasab, was interrogated by police and told them that Lakhvi recruited him. As police tried to garner more information from Kasab, Deven Bharti, head of the Mumbai crime branch, noted, "A terrorist of this sort is never cooperative. We have to extract information."