New Delhi: Intelligence inputs that
Pakistan-based terror outfit Lashker-e-Taiba has acquired as
high as 50 para-gliding equipments for potential use to launch
suicide attacks prompting a security alert in India ahead of
the Republic Day appears to be a blooper.
The Union Home Ministry has begun a discreet probe into
the basis for the inputs with official sources today saying it
has now emerged that only three para gliding equipments were
procured from China. According to intelligence inputs ahead of
the R-Day, LeT is believed to have procured 50 such equipments
from Europe sending security personnel into a tizzy.
Official sources said the inquiry will focus on how the
quantum of acquisition was apparently inflated irrespective of
their source.
Senior officials in the Home ministry claimed that they
had been briefed by the officials of the security agencies,
who washed their hands off about the possibility of the para
gliders being used to carry out terror strikes, sources said.
While giving information about LeT procuring the
para-gliding equipment, the intelligence inputs had suggested
that this might be used by the terror group for training
exercises for its cadres to launch terror strikes.
The intelligence agencies while assessing the input
had opined that carrying out an attack using para-gliders
would require rigorous training and a high level of expertise,
they said.
The intelligence input had warned that the innocuous
sporting gear could become a lethal weapon in the hands of
banned LeT, which carried out the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack.
The para-glider, a specially designed parachute attached
to the body of a person which gets a lift when air from the
opposite direction slams it, could be launched from an
elevated surface like a hillock or sky-scraper.
PTI
