NEW YORK, July 11: Police heightened security on subways in New York as a precaution on Tuesday after a series of bombs on trains in India killed at least 135 people, the New York Police Department said.
“We are increasing our security,” said Sgt Kevin Hayes, a police department spokesman.
He said the measures were a precautionary response to the Indian bombings and stressed, “There is no specific threats that we’ve received for New York.”
At least 163 people were killed and hundreds injured in seven bomb explosions on packed commuter trains and stations on Tuesday in Mumbai, India’s financial hub, officials said.
The heightened measures in New York come in the wake of news last week that US authorities thwarted a foreign-based plot to stage a suicide bombing in a rail tunnel in New York later this year.
They said the plot, still in the planning stage, entailed an attack in the commuter rail system that links Manhattan and New Jersey under the Hudson River. The system carries an estimated 215,000 passengers each weekday.
On Tuesday, police said additional security measures in the subway system, which carries some 4.5 million people on a typical weekday, would include increased patrols and increased random bag searches.
Police have been conducting searches of subway and bus passengers’ bags and parcels since the deadly bombings last summer in London’s buses and underground. New York has remained on high alert since the Sept. 11 tragedy.—Reuters
