PANJIM/NEW DELHI: For the second time in a month, Goa faces a serious ISIS threat with latest intelligence inputs revealing that the tourist destination along with Rajasthan tops the list of the Islamic State’s targets in India.
According to reports, the two States attract foreign tourists all round the year making them vulnerable to terror strikes. Intelligence Bureau has disclosed that the former ISIS India head Muddabbir Mushtaq Sheikh has confessed to interrogators that they planned to explode bombs in Goa where foreigners would be the main target.
ISIS seeks to attack foreign tourists and Indian security forces for global publicity and to boost the morale of its South Asia adherents. Interrogators said ISIS is scouting for a site in India to train its fighters.
Goa received more than four lakh foreign tourists during the six-month tourism season with the number of Russian and British nationals topping the arrivals’ chart. About a thousand charter flights, besides scheduled flights, bring in foreign holidayers during this period.
Sources in the State police claim to have contacted their counterparts and the IB in Delhi to ascertain the facts. “We will seek interrogation details,” a senior IPS officer told Herald stating that it has not received any official communication as of now.
The threat comes on the eve of the opening of the four-day Defence Expo starting from Monday that will have several countries displaying technology used in warfare. Goa is also celebrating Easter on Sunday besides witnessing Shigmotsav celebrations across the State.
Police had stepped up security when 10 terrorists were suspected to have entered India from Pakistan through Kutch in Gujarat in a bid to launch attacks in different parts of the country, including Panjim.
“Goa police is on high alert. The Special Branch has been activated after receiving intelligence inputs of terror threats from central agencies,” a police officer was quoted as saying soon after receiving the intelligence report.
Ironically, Goa has been a ‘home’, in fact a major hideout, for militants owing to major failures of intelligence inputs that keeps them safe from being tracked. Successive State governments have failed to track the presence of militants in Goa until their arrests by other agencies in Goa or elsewhere.
In the last one and half decade, the State has been surveyed by terrorists, including David Headley, several times as a potential terror target.
IS members had also planned to bomb Goa in December 2014, when foreign tourists are the highest in Goa, but were intercepted by intelligence agencies.
News agencies meanwhile said that Goa’s Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar has ruled out getting any specific terror threat to the state from the IS.
“We have not received any specific input besides a general alert,” Parsekar said.
