India on Thursday put its major airports on high alert following warnings of possible attacks using hijacked aircraft, officials said.
The emergency measures came a week after Islamist militants, whom India says were from Pakistan, launched a coordinated attack against India’s economic capital Mumbai leaving nearly 200 dead.
The alert was sounded as Defence Minister A.K. Antony ordered the armed forces to be on guard against “any terror strikes from the air,” officials said.
All major airports – including Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai and New Delhi – were placed on high alert, they said.
“This is based on a warning which has been received by the government and we are prepared as usual,” Air Chief Marshal Fali Major told reporters.
Officials cited intelligence “inputs” that militants may have sneaked into India to try to hijack civilian aircraft.
“We are now on a high state of alert,” Arun Arora, spokesman of New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport, told AFP.
The Bureau of Civil Aviation Security, which is in overall charge of airport safety, said additional paramilitary troops had been deployed to guard the country’s busiest international airports.
“We are also reinforcing security in smaller airports in cities such as Chandigarh and Guwahati,” an official from the bureau said.
Paramilitary troops in Chennai set up machine gun bunkers at the entrance of the city’s international airport, witnesses said.
Indian Air Force sources said fighter jets had been put on stand-by across India.
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