Lashkar-e-Taiba: New Delhi terrorist threat sees India police increase security for New Year

India's capital has been put under tight security for 31 December, with police ordered to carry out stringent checks on vehicles moving within the city. The measures come amid intelligence reports that 20 terrorists have entered the country from Pakistan and are planning an attack on New Year's Eve.

Police are monitoring a number of restaurants, hotels, pubs and farmhouses as people get together to see in the New Year, broadcaster NDTV has reported. Police checkpoints and border posts have also been increased, while the Delhi Police has also enforced traffic restrictions throughout the city for the evening of 31 December.

Muktesh Chander, Special Commissioner of Police (Traffic), told NDTV: "Delhi traffic police have made elaborate arrangements throughout the city for the smooth flow and regulation of traffic on the eve of the New Year. A restriction has been imposed on all private and public transport vehicles from 8.30pm until the conclusion of New Year celebrations in the vicinity of Connaught Place."

Earlier in December, the Delhi Police said that terrorist organisation Lashkar-e-Taiba was planning an attack on the capital. Officials believed the group could be planning to carry out a mass shooting or suicide-bombing attack at a political gathering with India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi in presence. Two of the terrorists were arrested in the northern state of Jammu and Kashmir earlier in the month, The Times of India reported.

Lashkar-e-Taiba is the same group that claimed responsibility for the 26/11 terrorist attack on Mumbai on 2008. The Pakistan-based terror group took the lives of 164 people over the course of a three-day siege. The attacks led to heightened tensions between India and Pakistan, with the latter confirming the last surviving perpetrator of the attacks was a Pakistani citizen. The mastermind of the incident, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, was granted bail by a Pakistani court in April 2015.