On India’s 67th Republic Day, the security establishment was kept on its toes in the wake of the red alert sounded across the country, following Intelligence inputs warning of the lurking threat of terror attacks. Thankfully, Tuesday passed of peacefully, much to the relief of both Central and State agencies engaged in thwarting any terror plot.
However, the day saw quiet a lot of action as an Indian Air Force Sukhoi 30 fighter aircraft shot down an “unidentified” balloon-shaped object in Barmer district in Rajasthan after the force’s radar picked it up, setting alarm bells ringing.
“Between 10.30 am and 11 am today, an unidentified balloon-shaped object was picked up by the IAF’s radar. A fighter jet was launched which intercepted the object and shot it down. Further investigation is underway,” an IAF spokesperson said.
At the same time, in Dehradun the police launched a manhunt for eight unidentified people caught moving suspiciously on CCTV footage.
Similarly, in Bhubaneswar police are on the trail of four “Iraqi nationals” who disappeared from a hotel after they were asked for their identity cards and in Pathankot, there was panic over an unclaimed bag left at the railway station.
In Uttarakhand, the police on Tuesday detected a CCTV grab of a terror suspect seen in the company of seven others who could be his associates, prompting authorities to sound an alert across the State and launch a search.
The DGP’s office in Dehradun said the CCTV grab has been released on WhatsApp with an appeal to people to help track down the suspect seen with the men standing close to him in the background.
The CCTV grab assumes significance as it is coming close on the heels of the arrest of four terror suspects linked with ISIS from Roorkee in Haridwar district.
Similarly, in Odisha, a high alert was sounded after four men, claiming themselves to be Iraqi nationals, disappeared when asked to produce identity proof at a hotel on Monday night.
Police suspect that the four men were terrorists as they were speaking in fluent Hindi and English and came to the hotel in a car with a Delhi registration number which turned out to be fake.
“The four persons who fled the hotel before the police arrived could be terrorists... The four suspected terrorists, who had claimed to be natives of Iraq, came in a car bearing a Delhi number plate. However, verification of the car’s registration number showed that it was fake,” said Director General of Police KB Singh.
Siba Narayan Mohapatra, manager of Hotel Arya Mahal, who interacted with one of the four men, said, “While one of them came to the hotel reception desk asking for two rooms, three others were inside the car parked outside. The CCTV has captured the picture of one suspected terrorist and the vehicle used by them.”
The police, who were called by the alert hotel staff, have seized the CCTV footage. A Special Task Force, led by IG Arun Bothra of the Crime Branch, has started investigation into the incident and launched an operation to trace the four men.
While police are not sure if the four men are still in the State capital, security personnel are checking CCTV footages from cameras installed at different places in Bhubaneswar.
Meanwhile, there was panic in Pathankot when an unidentified bag was detected at around 11.30 am. People were swiftly evacuated from the area and rail traffic was halted on the route.
Police and agencies in Pathankot have been on high alert following the terror strike at the IAF airbase early this month in which seven security personnel were killed.
Bomb disposal and dog squads were summoned to check out the contents of the bag.
Pathankot SSP, RK Bakshi said that sleuths found that the bag, wrapped in a black cloth, contained uniforms, shoes and other articles of an Army jawan who had left it behind by mistake when the train halted after reaching Pathankot from Delhi.
“We have established the identity of the jawan,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Central security agencies have detained two more persons in connection with the recently-busted pan-India terror module owing allegiance to the ISIS. The men will be handed over to the NIA soon.
Continuing with its operations against the group, the security agencies picked up a youth from Hyderabad and another person from Maharashtra, official sources said, adding both of them were likely to be handed over to the NIA on Wednesday.
The two, whose names have been withheld, were being questioned by a joint team of Intelligence agencies.
The NIA has so far arrested 14 people belonging to ‘Janood-ul-Khalifa-e-Hind’ (Army of Caliph of India), the Indian wing of ISIS, who were picked up from various parts of the country for allegedly planning to carry out terror strikes at important installations.