States asked to step up security

The central government has asked the states to heighten security at important places in view of the serial blasts at Mahabodhi temple in Bihar's Bodh Gaya, home ministry officials said Sunday.

They said that an advisory had been issued to states as a "normal security precaution".

"The states have been asked to step up security at important places," an official said.

Officials said the Bihar government had been given intelligence inputs about the possibility of terror attack on the Mahabodhi temple.

They said there were inputs of radical elements trying to attack the place which receives a large number of national and international tourists.

The officials said that inputs were being sent to the state on a regular basis and one such input had been given less than a month back.

They said security agencies had also alerted about possibility of fringe elements targeting the revered temple in Bodh Gaya in view of sectarian violence in Myanmar where scores of people have been killed in unrest between Buddhists and Muslims in Rakhine state.