Security beefed up in Hyderabad's IT corridor, airport

Security was beefed up in the Information Technology hub and at the Hyderabad airport here on Thursday, a day after the NIA busted an Islamic State (IS) module with the arrest of five suspects.

State police set up roadblocks and searched vehicles in Madhapur and Gachibowli, the two IT clusters housing several multinational tech giants.

Personnel from the Cyberabad Police Commissionerate also conducted searches at hotels, lodges, shopping malls and other public places.

The search operations were carried out in the wake of reports that IS sympathisers were plotting bomb attacks and indiscriminate firing at shopping malls and crowded places, including the IT corridor.

Meanwhile, a security alert was sounded at the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport at Shamshabad, around 20 km from here.

The alert comes in the wake of Wednesday's terror attack on the Kamal Ataturk Airport at Istanbul, Turkey, which killed 41 and injured 239 others. The IS is suspected to have carried out the suicide attack on airport.

The RGI Airport authorities banned the entry of visitors to the premises while police erected additional checkpoints in the airport area.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Wednesday claimed to have busted an IS module by detaining 11 suspects, five of whom were later arrested.

The NIA continued to grill the five suspects on Thursday also to unravel their alleged plan to attack locations across Hyderabad.

--IANS

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