High Alert After Schoolchildren Spot Men Carrying Guns Mumbai
MUMBAI: The navy is on highest alert after schoolchildren spot men carrying arms near ammo dump Schoolchildren say they saw men dressed in black, carrying arms.
The five men were seen near Navy ammunition dump in Uran Navy alerted after students reported the men to school authorities.
“ONGC” and “school” were two words that the children overheard the men saying, sources say. The men were in “Pathan suits” and carried backpacks, the children reportedly said. The school informed the police.The Navy, sources say, is treating the information very seriously and has launched efforts to secure all bases. “We cannot overlook anything at this point,” a senior officer said. All air force units in Mumbai are also on high alert.
One of the children talked about one man but the other reported having seen five men around 7 am, their faces covered and “speaking a different language”, near an ammunition storage facility of the naval base in Uran.
The police, Maharashtra’s anti-terror squad or ATS and the navy are all involved in a massive multi-agency search operation. Uran is about 50 km from Mumbai, where 166 people were killed in November 2008 when landmarks in the city were attacked by 10 terrorists who came by sea. It is close to important locations like the Jawaharlal Nehru Port and the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre.
India has also been on guard since the terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Uri on Sunday, in which 18 soldiers were killed. Since the attack, there have been several infiltration attempts which have been stopped by the army.
Students alleged that they spotted the men opposite INS Abhimanyu base and heard them saying ‘ONGC’ and ‘school’.Notably, Uran houses an ammunition dump of the Indian Navy and also an ONGC plant.Meanwhile, Minister of State for Home, Deepak Kesarkar, told that the men were clad in burqas. However, news agency ANI quoted Navy sources as saying that the men were dressed in Pathani suits and were talking to each other in a different language.
Kesarkar further urged people not to pay heed to rumours and panic, and keep trust on security officials.Treading cautiously, the Navy sounded an alert across naval bases in Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Thane, and Raigad.Maharashtra DGP Satish Mathur has confirmed the news and said that ‘suspected’ terrorists were spotted at 6:30 am today. A search operation has been initiated in the state, Mathur added.
This comes amid heightened tensions between India and Pakistan following a terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Uri on Sunday in which 18 soldiers were killed.
