DNA

• A caller, who identified himself as a journalist, warned of subversive activity at the rly station

Mumbai, Nov 10: Security at the Mumbai Central railway station was beefed up on Diwali following an anonymous call on Friday November 9, that warned of subversive activity at the railway terminus. Efforts are on to trace the caller, who rang up the main police control room at around 2.50pm on 100.

“The caller, who identified himself only as Satish, first asked for the cellphone number of the city police chief. As we are not allowed to give out his personal number, we asked him the reason why he wanted to call the commissioner. Satish told us that some people were planning to carry out terrorist activities at Mumbai Central railway station and hung up,” said an official from the main control room.

Following the call, the concerned police official immediately passed on the information to their counterparts in railway police. Teams from the Bomb Detection and Disposal Squad and Dog Squad were dispatched to Mumbai Central, which is the origin for many outstation trains on Western Railway.

Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad chief and Additional DGP (Railways Security) KP Raghuvanshi said both “covert as well as overt” security has been increased at the spot following the call.

“We receive many calls informing us about terror activities to be carried at station, some of them prove to be a hoax, but we are not taking any of them lightly. Adequate security measures have been taken to meet any untoward incident. Nothing has been found as of now from the Mumbai Central railway station,” said Raghuvanshi.

Efforts are on to trace the exact origins from where the call was made and to get the person, the police added. An alert has been sent to all the stations, including Karjat, Kasara, Kalyan, Palghar and Panvel.

Security in Mumbai, which saw a series of seven synchronised explosions on local trains killing 187 people last July, has been the highest since the beginning of the festive season in September with the Ganesh Chaturthi.

Security has been further enhanced in view of Diwali and the police have also sensitised hundreds of people in wake of general alerts in the run up to the festival.