With the city high on the terror radar, the Maharashtra anti-terrorism squad (ATS) has issued an advisory for an hourly clean-up of garbage bins to civic bodies and cantonment boards in Pune after the Bengaluru blast which killed one woman and injured three others.
The Pune unit of the ATS has drawn the attention of the Pune Municipal Corporation to garbage dumps and debris heaps as they could be used to camouflage improvised explosive devices (IEDs) by terror outfits.
The advisory has also warned the city’s residents to avoid parking in densely concentrated areas like the J.M. Road and the M.G. Road.
Concurrently, a Pune ATS team has reached Bengaluru to aid the Karnataka police. Officials see similarities between the Bengaluru pipe bomb blast and the last two explosions in Pune city.
In August 2012, four coordinated low-intensity serial blasts had rocked the crowded J.M. Road area. The ATS had arrested seven allegedly suspected Indian Mujahideen (IM) members in connection with the case.
In July this year, another low-intensity blast triggered by an IED near the Faraskhana police station close to the famous Dagdusheth Ganpati had the city on edge.
