Airports in India, elite commando force NSG put on high alert after threat to hijack Indian commercial airliner

India has placed airports in the country on high alert after Western intelligence warned of a possible attempt by terrorists to hijack an Indian commercial airliner.

The National Security Guard (NSG), India’s elite commando force, also have been placed on high alert and helicopters have been positioned at the NSG’s base for rapid movement of troops following “credible” intelligence reports that terrorist groups based in Pakistan are planning to hijack an Indian commercial airliner in south Asia.

The Home Ministry sounded the alert, believed to be based on intelligence warnings from the Western countries.

According to the intelligence inputs, Islamic groups connected with terrorist outfits Al Qaeda, Jamaat-ud-Dawa and Lashkar-e-Tayyeba are planning to hijack an airliner of Air India, India’s flag-carrier airline, operating in any of the member-countries of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) – India, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

Intelligence reports have warned that members of the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) had obtained from China paragliding equipment for 50 people.

However, security officials stressed that possible attacks by paragliders is a long-term threat since the terrorists will have to be trained first and then pushed into India. Another factor is that, since paragliding requires strong winds, these terrorists are likely to target a coastal city.

U K Bansal, special secretary (internal security) at the Ministry of Home Affairs, said there exists suspicion that terrorists could target one of India’s airlines, especially those carriers that fly overseas, and hence the high alert and anti-hijacking steps.

A top official of the Ministry of Home Affairs said the National Security Guard has already requisitioned helicopters from the Border Security Force (BSF).

He made it clear that the hijack threat is “credible and imminent” and that the government is withholding some information in order to “shore up” the country’s defence mechanisms.

An official of India’s Ministry of Civil Aviation said that, with a view to making the skies safer, sky marshals – who are armed NSG commandos in plainclothes – have been deployed on flights that are assessed to be at high risk.

According to a senior officer of the National Security Guard, all agencies in charge of security have taken the required steps to ensure aviation security, and hundreds of NSG commandos have already been placed on flights that operate in “sensitive airports.” He refused to divulge details of the NSG deployment on flights.

Also, all passengers boarding flights are being frisked at the ladder-point.

India is already in the process of a major overhaul of its security and intelligence-gathering mechanisms, following the multiple bomb attacks by terrorist on Mumbai on November 26, 2008, in which 174 people lost their lives.

In 1999, an Air India flight that took off from Kathmandu was hijacked by Islamic militants and taken to Kandahar, in Afghanistan. The passengers on the hijacked plane were freed only after the government of India succumbed to the hijackers’ demand to release three terrorists being detained in India.