MUMBAI, India — India’s financial capital was on high alert Friday after authorities said four terrorists had entered the country and were plotting attacks here during the holidays.
Mumbai police officials said late Thursday night that they suspected that the men belonged to Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistani group that Indian and American officials blame for the November 2008 attacks in this city that killed more than 163 people. They released a sketch of one of the men, identified as Waleed Jinnah, and asked the public to call the police if they saw him or had any information about the attackers.
“We are getting information in bits and pieces,” Deven Bharti, who heads the Mumbai police’s crime branch, said in a telephone interview on Friday. “We are trying to work on it.”
This is the second time in four months that police here have said terrorists were planning to attack Mumbai, India’s largest and most dynamic city. In September, police released the sketch of another terrorist who they said was planning an attack to coincide with a religious festival.
Worries about terrorism have been high for much of this year, especially during President Obama’s visit in early November. Security has been increased at five-star hotels, train stations and other public places that are considered high-profile targets, but few security experts believe that a city as populous and sprawling as this can be fully protected against determined attackers.
During the 2008 attacks, 10 terrorists laid siege to the city for three days, killing people at the city’s busiest train station, a bar, two five-star hotels and a Jewish center. Although more people have been killed here in riots and bomb blasts, that attack had a lasting impact,. heightening tensions between India and Pakistan, nuclear-armed neighbors that have fought several wars with each other since becoming independent from the British in 1947.
By: Vikas Bajaj (ny times)
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