The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : Security stepped up at airport

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Wednesday, Aug 13, 2008
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Security stepped up at airport

Marri Ramu

Threat call of bomb explosions on I-Day puts police on alert

No visitor passes for past one week
Passengers cannot enter lounge without CISF scrutiny of documents

HYDERABAD: Police stepped up security cover at the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport in Shamshabad after they received an anonymous threat call that terrorists would explode bombs on Independence Day.

Among other measures, police stopped issuing passes to visitors seeing off passengers, especially those boarding international flights for the past one week. Not willing to take any chances, the police and the GMR management operating the airport began searching the airport from stem to stern every day.

Call made to Mumbai

Threat calls were not new but law-enforcing agencies took the latest one rather seriously as it was made to Intelligence officials in Mumbai. “The caller rang up a Mumbai police officer on the landline phone and threatened that bombs would be triggered at the airport on Friday,” sources in the Cyberabad police told The Hindu on Tuesday.

As the caller named a terrorist outfit and maintained that a person to ‘execute the specific task’ would land at the airport on Independence Day, police did not want to ignore the call. Passes to visitors were issued liberally all these days. But from Wednesday last, police categorically stopped issuing passes.

Tough steps

Even requests from senior police officers were turned down. The authorities decided that only the officer personally accompanying the passenger should be allowed inside. Passengers can enter the lounge only after the CISF personnel at the domestic and international terminal gates scrutinise the travel documents. Access control was tightened by confining visitors to a few yards away from the entry points.

Meanwhile, an anonymous letter that reportedly landed at the Cyberabad Commissionerate office at Gachibowli further drove the police to tighten security at the airport.

It is learnt that the letter pointed to many several security lapses at the airport pointing out that any individual can drive into the airport without being checked.

In the backdrop of the letter and the threat calls, the police started checking the antecedents of employees of all wings at the airport.

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Andhra Pradesh