Sources from the Pune police said the federal Intelligence Bureau (IB) has warned that terrorists may possibly carry out suicide attacks within a week's time against American diplomatic missions and cultural centers in various parts of the country and in Maharashtra.
US diplomats had met the city police commissioner Satya Pal Singh on Thursday regarding the threat, the sources said. The details of the discussion have been kept secret.
Taking serious cognizance of the IB alert, the Pune police have increased presence and adopted tight security measures at important and vital civilian and military installations.
Police have advised hotels and important institutions to erect cross iron barricades and sand bags frontage as a deterrent against the use of explosives-laden vehicles in their suicide terror attacks.
Security has also been beeked up in places where the presence of foreigners are in large numbers including educational institutions and malls and resorts.
Police officers have been ordered to maintain strict vigil on the movement of suspected people and vehicles.
The IB warning comes a month after the deadly bomb attack on a German bakery in Pune, in which 17 people were killed and several others injured. Probers have yet to make any breakthough in their investigation.
According to IB sources, alleged terrorist David Headly, who had been arrested in United States, had during the last three years visited Pune, Mumbai, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Goa, Ajmer, Lucknow, Agra and Cochin. He had stayed in a hotel in Pune about 200 feet away from the bakery blast site.
In view of this factor, the IB has alerted the police to beef up security in cities that Headly had visited during his stay in India.
Security to the maximum level has been beefed up at Chabad House, a Jewish center in the posh Koregaon Park area, and which is also not far from the bakery blast site.
IB sources further said that the possibility of terrorists carrying out suicide terror attacks are most likely at US diplomatic and cultural centers in the country or where the presence of American citizens are in large numbers. Headly, the sources said, had collected vital information from the nine cities that he had visited.
The objectives of the terrorists are to carry out suicide terror attacks and instill fear and panic among the people, police said.
