PUNE/MUMBAI: For the second consecutive day, the Pune police yesterday carried out massive checking and combing operations in the city, following certain intelligence outputs about possible attack threat.
High alert was sounded and armed policemen equipped with sophisticated weapons including AK-47 rifles were checking vehicles and documents of the occupants all over the city.
Barricades and checkpoints were set up at different locations. All roads near the city police commissioners’ office were sealed since yesterday afternoon, leading to traffic chaos due to the diversion.
All police personnel have been put on duty and their leave canceled up to tomorrow. Though the reasons for this highest-ever security operation in the history of Pune city was not revealed by the police authorities, however, Commissioner of Police Satyapal Singh, when quizzed by journalists, said that Pune being an important city, Puneites should remain alert.
Alarmed by the intensity of the security operations, rumor mills were doing rounds that terrorists have sneaked into the city. “People should not believe in any kind of rumors,” said the city police chief.
Meanwhile, in another development, a metropolitan magistrate in Mumbai extended the police remand of Mohammed Ajmal Amir Qasab, the lone surviving terrorist involved in the November Mumbai terror attacks.
The Mumbai crime branch had registered 12 cases against Qasab including the shootout at the CST railway station and Cama Hospital in south Mumbai on Nov. 26.
As anticipated, the police did not produce Qasab in the local court, citing threat to his life. Instead, the magistrate, N. Shrimangle, was taken to an undisclosed destination along with the government prosecutor, where Qasab is lodged, and conducted the hearing.
The government prosecutor argued that since the investigations were not complete and more time was needed, he pressed for further police custody, and the magistrate then extended the police custody of Qasab till Feb. 2.
