Major cities on alert after terror warning

India increased security in all of its major cities yesterday after a warning that a Pakistan-based militant group was planning an attack this weekend.

Extra police patrolled the streets of the financial capital, Mumbai, which was attacked in 2008, and security was tightened at airports and railway stations in the beach resort state of Goa following reports that the banned militant group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, was planning to target these places.

India has taken even minor terror threats seriously since a three-day terrorist siege killed 166 people in Mumbai, though there has been no major attack there since.

Security has been high in Mumbai since Friday, when police began searching for four men who authorities believe entered the city to carry out a terrorist attack. Computer-aided photographs of the four suspects were released and police made house-to-house searches in some parts of the city while tightening security checks at bus and train stations, churches and markets.

In the 2008 attack, 10 armed terrorists fanned out across Mumbai attacking two luxury hotels, a Jewish centre and a railway station.

In March, Mumbai police said they prevented a major terrorist strike after they arrested two Indian men, who, police said, were preparing to hit several targets in the city.