The Indian government today issued a country-wide security alert asking states to heighten vigil to check any attempts by terror groups to carry out attacks, amid fears of a backlash from terror groups following Indian military's "surgical strikes" across Pakistan border on Thursday.'
In an advisory, Indian Home Ministry has reportedly asked Indian states to deploy additional security forces in all "sensitive" areas like markets, religious places among others.
Indian metro cities including New Delhi and Mumbai have been asked to be extra vigilant. Indian states bordering Pakistan -- Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Rajasthan and Gujarat – have also been put on high alert. As many as 1,000 villages in Punjab are being evacuated, according to media reports.
There's a high chance that Pakistani-based agencies may try to use terror groups to carry out strike on Indian soil in retaliation to Thursday's surgical strike, sources told PTI.
On Thursday, India conducted military 'surgical strikes,' on terror bases across the "Line-Of-Control" on the nights of September 28 and 29, inflicting what it claimed were "significant casualties" on terrorists and those who are trying to support them.
The announcement of the sudden action by the Indian Army came less than two weeks after a militant strike by Pakistan-based JeM on an Indian Army camp in Uri in Kashmir that left 19 Indian soldiers dead.
With PTI inputs