Mystery continued over the spotting of “five to six” suspicious men dressed in pathan suits with backpacks and carrying weapons at Uran in neighbouring Raigad district on Friday, even as the Indian Navy called off its security operations along the Mumbai coast. However, the Maharashtra police and other agencies continued surveillance of the sensitive areas.” “As far as Indian Navy is concerned, operations based on Thursday’s sightings of suspected terrorists are concerned are over. Sanitisation of naval areas has been undertaken. Navy is maintaining close liaison with local police/other agencies for further updates/developments,” a Defence Ministry spokesperson said in a statement issued in the evening.
“Insofar as the State of alertness is concerned, the Navy maintains a high state of alert/ tight vigil at all times in consonance with the prevailing circumstances,” the spokesperson added. The day began with the Raigad police releasing the sketches of two of the “five to six” suspicious men sighted by two schoolchildren from Uran on Thursday morning.
While the two students from a school run by the Uran Education Society – a boy and a girl – stuck to their version of having sighted “five to six” suspicious heavily armed men, the local police did not make any headway in tracing the “suspicious” men during the day.
"Till now, the version of two witnesses (students) could not be confirmed, efforts are on," Navi Mumbai Police Commissioner Hemant Nagrale said.
Meanwhile, schools, colleges, shops and establishments at Uran and surrounding areas remained closed for the second consecutive day, even as the local continued their combing operations.
The Maharashtra police and central agencies had on Thursday sounded a high alert along the Mumbai coast and launched a massive combing operation in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region after the sighting of heavily armed suspicious-looking men by two students.
On its part, the Indian Navy mounted an aerial surveillance and intensified patrolling in the sea using its high-speed boats and vessels, while the Indian Coast Guard enhanced patrolling along the Mumbai seacoast and the marine police beefed up measures along the creeks and important shore assets. The Raigad and Navi Mumbai and Mumbai police, Anti-Terrorism Squad, NSG and Force-One late had also swung into action.
The state and central agencies had sounded a very high alert in view of the fact that Uran, where “five to six” suspicious persons dressed in pathan suits with backpacks and carrying weapons, is a strategic location in terms of military and other State assets. It is in the vicinity of this town that the Jawaharlal Nehru Port, the biggest container terminal of India, important bases of Indian Navy’s Western Naval Command (WNC) like INS Tunir, the missiles and weapons storage facility of the Indian Navy, INS Abhimanyu, the training facility of the elite marine commandos, a facility of the ONGC besides several companies are based.
The Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) at Trombay is not far away from Uran, which is located across the eastern water front of the commercial capital.