Tamil Nadu railway stations on bomb alert

VILLUPURAM: Several railway stations in Tamil Nadu were on high alert on Tuesday in the wake of a bomb threat even as the state police chief said that there was no specific intelligence report warning of terror attacks.
The station master at Tindivanam received a post card warning him that bombs would explode at 30 different places in the next 35 days if Al-Umma chief SA Basha was not released from Coimbatore prison. Basha is the main accused and is under trial in the 1998 Coimbatore bomb blast cases.
Security was beefed up at Cuddalore, Villupuram and Vriddachalam railway stations.
According to the police, the letter also said that militants trained in terrorist camps in Kashmir had entered Tamil Nadu and were planning to attack Tiruchirapalli and Vellore prisons.
The Director General of Police P Rajendran said on Tuesday: "the state is calm and peaceful".
The police chief denied reports that hardcore ultras have infiltrated into the state. "There is no specific information of any extremist alert from the intelligence bureau to us," Rajendran said.
He told the media on Tuesday that a warning received two days before was part of an all-India alert "issued immediately after the Hyderabad blasts only to beef up security measures as a precautionary measure."
"We are maintaining a close watch on suspicious elements in the state and collecting information on foreigners who are overstaying in the state."
He also warned against "those spreading rumours about terrorist attacks in the state".
Police in Chennai said that a young Bangladeshi woman arrested in connection with the Hyderabad blasts had studied in Vellore for more than three years.
Sahi Rafjani had lived in Katpadi near Vellore and studied for her BA degree course in Auxilium Women's College at Katpadi, the police said. She had also supported the medical treatment of her father at the Vellore Christian Medical College.