Security has been beefed up in the national capital in view of specific intelligence inputs about Lashker-e-Taiba’s (LeT) plans to attack the city after Ramzan. According to sources in the central security establishment, intelligence agencies had last month intercepted terror chatter about LeT’s designs to carry out strikes in Delhi at the end of the holy fasting month.
Considering that Eid, which follows Ramzan, coincided with run-up to the Independence Day, the agencies promptly alerted the Delhi Police to step up surveillance.
An additional alert followed on Thursday, wherein IB pointed to a recent speech by LeT founder and Jamaat-ud-Dawah chief Hafiz Mohammed Saeed threatening Red Fort-like attacks in the national capital. In the speech delivered in Karachi, Saeed had said that just like the Red Fort attack carried out by LeT, “we would strike in Delhi yet again”.
The intelligence alert — reportedly sent by a senior IB official to the Delhi police commissioner — warns of possible terror strikes by Pakistan based-terror outfits like the LeT. This led the Delhi Police to immediately ramp up security at crowded places, shopping centres and malls as intelligence officials believe that “whenever Hafiz Saeed has extended such a threat, something major has happened”.
According to Delhi Police sources, the IB communique, dated August 8, speaks of Hafiz Saeed addressing a crowd saying, “Jehaad ko sirf doosre desho tak seemit na rakha jaaye, balki India me zor-o-shor se failaya jaaye. US bhi Pakistan ko lekar Gambhir nahi hai, isiliye uski baton pe jyada dhyan dene ki zarurat nahi hai. Jis tarah ke halat chal rahe hain, aise me Delhi me 2000 ke Lal Qila attack ki tarah attack hona zaruri hai. Aise attack karne waale jehaadiyon ko koi nahi rok sakta. (Jehaad shouldn’t be restricted to other countries but it should be taken to India at mass level. United States is also not serious about Pakistan, so we shouldn’t care about it. The kind of scenario there is today, there is a need to carry an attack on lines of 2000 Red Fort attack in Delhi. Nobody could stop such attackers)”
