Highly explosive devices and a mobile phone as trigger were used by terrorists in Wednesday's low intensity bomb blasts that rocked the city, police said Friday. Samples collected from the blast sites by a team of the National Security Guard from Delhi along with forensic experts from Kolkata have prima facie revealed that the explosives used were of most recent vintage, DIG, (police control) Nepal Das said.
As Mumbai gears up to welcome its beloved Lord Ganesha once again, the Balgopal Sarvajanik Sevamandal at Sewree has decided to adopt an unusual theme for this year's Ganeshotsav. The Sarvajanik Sevamandal has used the theme of the terror attacks, which rocked Mumbai in November last year, to decorate its pandal. Replicas of Hotel Taj, Hotel Trident, photographs of the slain top cops of Mumbai and the slain personnel of the National Security Guard can be seen inside the pandal
According to the police, these villages have never seen unfurling or hoisting of the national flag since 1947, but that will change when its residents will join the rest of the country in celebrating Republic Day, which commemorates the day when the Constitution came into effect in 1950.
A yellow minibus carrying Nepal and Afghan security guards was hit by a suicide bomber in the Banae area, PD9 Kabul city at around 5.40 am.
Launching the National Security Guard hub in Hyderabad, Home Minister P Chidambaram today said intelligence agencies have indicated a terror threat to the country's west coast, but it did not meant that there will be an imminent attack.
Inaugurating the first National Security Guards hub in Mumbai, the Union Home Minister P Chidambaram on Tuesday promised the people to set up all the proposed NSG hubs by the deadline of July 1.
The Republic Day celebrations at Rajpath this year are likely to witness a number of changes including smaller marching contingents, shorter distance for the parade and fewer spectators compared to the previous years in view of the coronavirus pandemic.
However, the Maldives government has no intention of removing the doctors from India at Senahiya, a media report said.
'Even if the national security framework is to be threat-based, then the division of security threats between Pakistan and China is absurd. The two threats are one.'
The chief of the National Security Guards had recently warned that India could be struck by terrorists using biological weapons and with the help of women affiliates of the Al-Qaeda.
India on Monday asserted that its friendly ties with the Maldives will continue as Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Mohamed Muizzu unveiled a blueprint for comprehensive economic and maritime cooperation, signalling a reset of the relationship that had hit a rough patch last year due to anti-New Delhi rhetoric.
India will kickstart on Tuesday a two-day multi-agency military exercise covering the country's 7,516 km-long coastline and exclusive economic zone with the twin aim of checking the preparedness of various agencies to deal with any eventualities and bolster overall maritime security, officials said.
"The army is certainly facing shortage of officers and we will see how we can combat it. But if the government needs manpower in the anti-terror operations, we will certainly provide them," Army Chief General Deepak Kapoor said, when queried about the army's manpower constraint and meeting the government demand for NSG.
The 'heroes of Mumbai' will be a major attraction at the Republic Day parade this year, with the National Security Guard sending a contingent to join other uniformed services to march on the Rajpath for the first time in its history.
The elite National Security Guard was under pressure to use gas to neutralise the heavily armed Lashkar-e-Tayiba terrorists during the Mumbai terror attacks last year, but the idea was shot down for fear of repeat of another Russian theatre disaster.
The cowardly act of terrorism has not dented his strength. He will continue to visit Mumbai and like always, will stay at the Oberoi-Trident.
The National Security Guard chief denied that the terrorists made any move to enter into negotiations by sending demands to the raiding commando units. "We did not received any demand from any of the terrorists," NSG Director General Jyoti Kishan Dutt said.
"The National Security Guards is here. They are carrying out a very deliberate operation. They are trained for it and are the best in the country. I have faith in them," Major General R K Hooda, General Officer Commanding, Maharashtra area, told reporters outside the hotel
Suspense over the identity of the leader of a National Security Guards (NSG) team which had shot dead a terrorist at Hotel Oberoi on November 26 last year got over with NSG informing police on Wednesday that he was Lt Col R K Sharma.
The country could ill-afford such a situation where innocents are made to pay a price because an incompetent police wants to keep the record books filled. It is time now to ask sharp questions. And time has come for the investigating agencies to answer them. Quickly.
The four National Security Guard hubs announced in the aftermath of the Mumbai terror strikes last year will be operational by June 30.
Surjan Singh Bhandari passed away at 4.25am, his brother Commandant Uttam Singh told PTI in Ahmedabad.
A Border Security Force officer and a jawan died during patrol due to exposure to 'extreme weather' at the Harami Nallah creek area along the India-Pakistan international front in Gujarat, the force said on Saturday.
Union Home Minister P Chidambaram on Friday said that the country will have more National Security Guard hubs in the future to tackle the threat of terrorism. The home minister read out a statement to media persons, following his visit to the anti-terrorist hub established by the army in Bengaluru.
Punjab Director General of Police N P S Aulakh has been appointed as the new chief of the elite National Security Guards and will assume charge on March 1. Aulakh, a 1972-batch officer of the Indian Police Service, will replace J K Dutta who is retiring on Saturday, official sources said on Friday. He was appointed the Punjab DGP in March 2007 after the formation of Shiromani Akali Dal Bharatiya Janata Party combine government in the state. Aulakh is to retire in August 2010
'Trump has no more elections to fight and his soaring ambition, which is no secret, will be to carve out a presidential legacy that outshines by far all his mediocre predecessors.' 'Trump's turnaround on the H-1B visa debate shows that he can take tough decisions and there are no holy cows in his domain,' asserts Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The Centre will provide a close proximity cover of elite "Black Cat" commandos from the National Security Guard (NSG) to Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad in the wake of threat perception from Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).
Those arrested on Thursday included Muslims as well as Hindus.
An account of an injured NSG commando at the Taj.
It is hard for the lay observer to understand why it should take 60 hours for crack commandos of the National Security Guard to clear a hotel of four attackers.
One of the commandos, who was part of the action in Taj Palace hotel, described to rediff.com how the drama unfolded and the ordeal they underwent to flush out the terrorists who had held the entire city ransom.
A two-year-old Israeli boy, who was waiting for two days to be reunited with his parents Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife Rivka Holtzberg on his birthday on Friday, will never see them again. The bodies of Tzvi's parents were found by the Commandos of the National Security Guards who stormed the Nariman House in south Mumbai after killing the two holed-up terrorists. Moshe Tzvi had been taken out by his nanny on Thursday when the terrorists stormed into the Nariman House.
"At 0943 Hours, an IL-76 of the IAF air-lifted 124 of the troops to Mumbai. The operational commanders on ground felt that more troops would be required to complete the operation," a Defence Ministry source told PTI in New Delhi on Friday.
The IED that triggered a low-intensity explosion in courtroom number 102 on December 9 had left a person injured.
An ATS official and an NSG commando who came outside the Taj Mahal hotel for a breather told rediff.com that it is a do or die situation inside the hotel. "We have been firing, searching and retreating for a while as the terrorists go back into hiding," they said. "We have no option but to either kill them or capture them. The manner in which the terrorists are holding fort and retaliating, makes it clear that they are here only for destruction and nothing else."
The National Security Guard, which is engaged in a gun battle with the terrorists at Taj Hotel in Mumbai, said all but one terrorists were killed in the encounter and hoped to wrap up the flush-out operation at the Trident-Oberoi hotel and Nariman House very soon."There is one terrorist in the Taj Hotel. He has been injured and I think we will be able to mop up the operation there very quickly," Director General of NSG J K Dutt said.
At least 40 to 50 hostages are holed up in one room by six to eight terrorists in the topmost floors of the Taj Mahal Hotel, said a National Security Guards commando involved in the operation. There are 170-odd NSG commandoes involved in the flushing-out operation, said the commando who had stepped out for a breather
The bomb, which appeared to be similar to the one which exploded inside the dargah complex on Thursday, has been defused.
