India Names Pakistani Masterminds, Date Plot to 07

Meanwhile, India put its airports on alert following threats of possible airborne attacks. Security forces swarmed New Delhi's international airport early Friday after the sound of gunfire was heard, police said, but no one was injured or killed. Police said it was not a terrorist incident.

A Railway Special Forces personnel keeps guard at Mumbai's main train station, Chhatrapati Shivaji...

A Railway Special Forces personnel keeps guard at Mumbai's main train station, Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, in Mumbai, India, Thursday, Dec. 4, 2008. India suspects that two senior leaders of a banned Pakistani militant group master minded last week's three-day terrorist attacks that killed 171 people in Mumbai, an Indian intelligence official said Thursday. (AP Photo/Saurabh Das)

(AP)

The warning received by the airports "spoke of possibility of aircraft being hijacked by terrorists," India's air force chief, Fali Homi Major, told reporters Thursday.

The alert focused on three major airports — New Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai — but security was stepped up across India.

Several extra layers of security were set up and some passengers' bags were scanned for explosives.

"Passengers have been asked to pass through six-stage security checks," said Brij Lal, a senior police official organizing security at the airport in the northern city of Lucknow.

Nirmala Sharma, a passenger who flew from New Delhi to Lucknow, said her bags were checked a half dozen times and she went through a metal detector three times. "Sometimes it seemed tedious, but it seems to be the need of the hour," she said.

———

Associated Press writers Ramola Talwar Badam and Muneeza Naqvi in Mumbai, Ashok Sharma and Tim Sullivan in New Delhi, Biswajeet Banerjee in Lucknow and Anne Gearan in Islamabad contributed to this report.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.