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| Sharpshooters stand atop vital installations | | Delhi will be no-fly zone for several hours Aug. 15 | | B L KAK
NEW DELHI, AUG. 14:
An unprecedented security measure on Tuesday, August 15: Delhi will be a no-fly zone for several hours when the Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, hoists the national flag from the Red Fort. Roads leading to the Red Fort will be shut to normal traffic then.
The celebrations on August 15, which mark India's independence from Britsh rule in 1947, have been frequently disturbed by insurgent groups who use the national day to mount atacks and underline their presence, forcing hightened vigil. This time alarmed by blasts in Mumbai, a terrorist plot in Britain and a U.S. warning of a likely Al Qaeda attack, India has raised security to its highest levels in years for this week's Independence Day anniversary.
The Union capital as well as India's other major cities have been placed on an unprecedented security alert amid threats of terror attacks ahead of the country's Independence Day celebrations, Home Ministry officials said on Monday. The security alert came amid intelligence reports that Islamic militant groups were plotting major attacks around Tuesday's Independence Day celebrations.
Tens of thousands of policemen and paramilitary soldiers were deployed across the Indian capital, a city of 14 million people, where terror attacks were feared the most. Sharpshooters stood atop some government offices, while security forces placed barricades in many major streets of the city. Airports across the country also were on high alert, officials said.
Elite commandos are guarding nuclear facilities such as the Bhaba Atomic Research Center in Bombay and the Kalpakkam nuclear reactor in Tamil Nadu . EARLY TIMES was told by a top oficial of the Home Ministry that in the troubled Jammu and Kashmir State, comunications among militant groups planning major atacks had been intercepted. Several Islamic rebel groups, which have been fighting for Kashmir's independence from India, have called for a boycott of the Independence Day.
There are threats from other groups as well-- separatists in the country's northeast and Maoist groups in some 13 States in eastern and southern India. Intelligence officials in the country's northeast, home to nearly two dozen insurgencies, said that heavily armed guerrillas had sneaked into the region in small groups from their hideouts in neighbouring Bangladesh and Myanmar to create trouble.
Police in over half-a-dozen states spread across eastern, central and southern India have also increased vigil to prevent attacks by Maoist rebels who say they are fighting for the rights of poor farmers and landless labourers. The threat this year is believed to be mainly from Bangladesh-based Harkat-ul-Jehadi Islami and Jamiat-ul- Mujahideen Bangaldesh, who are suspected to have entered into an alliance with the banned SIMI.
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