Hyderabad blasts: Gujarat was also alerted on Thursday morning

The governments Gujarat and Maharashtra, along with four southern cities of Hyderabad, Bangalore, Coimbatore and Hubli, were specifically alerted by central security agencies about possible attacks by Pakistan-based terror groups to avenge the hanging of 26/11 terrorist Ajmal Kasab and Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru, sources said Friday.

Government sources said acting on intelligence inputs, the security agencies had conveyed to police of Hyderbad, Bangalore, Coimbatore and Hubli, and Maharashtra and Gujarat governments about possible attacks and asked them to intensify security in all sensitive areas.

They, however, said it was wrong to blame the Andhra Pradesh Police for yesterday's twin blasts in Hyderabad as even though the information was to specific cities, there was no mention of time and place as such details are rarely known.

Apart from a general advisory sent to all states on February 19, the specific information was shared with the four cities and two states on February 21 morning.

The alerts suggested that Pakistan-based terrorist groups may carry out attacks in one of the places, sources said.

In their subsequent advisories, the central security agencies asked all states to tighten security in sensitive places as Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad, Hizbul Mujahideen and Indian Mujahideen may launch terror attacks.

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