Have You Seen Them? Search Ops On For 'Armed Men' in Uran Near Mumbai

Uran: Commandos and policemen are scouring the coastal town of Uran near Mumbai for the second day after school students reported seeing masked men with weapons and backpacks near an ammo storage facility of a navy base. A sketch was released last night based on the account of the teens.

The students' report sent the Navy into the highest level of alert.

One of the students claimed to have seen one man near the naval base and the other, a girl, reported having seen five men dressed in black Pathan suits around 7 am on Thursday, "speaking a different language". She claimed to have overheard the men saying "ONGC" and "school". An officer said the information is "not being treated as a prank" as the students are both teenagers and "old enough".

All schools have been closed for two days in Uran, which is about 50 km from Mumbai. The town has a state-run ONGC or Oil and Natural Gas Corporation plant and is close to the Jawaharlal Nehru Port and the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre.

Anti-terror National Security Guard (NSG) commandos have joined the massive multi-agency search operation in Uran involving the police, Maharashtra's anti-terror squad or ATS and the Navy.

Commandos are also on standby in Mumbai, where 166 people were killed in November 2008 when landmarks in the city were attacked by 10 terrorists who came by sea. Force 1, an elite anti-terror unit set up after the attack referred to as 26/11, is also in Uran.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis tweeted that massive combing ops were on and appealed to citizens not to panic.

India has also been on guard since the terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir's Uri on Sunday, in which 18 soldiers were killed. Since the attack, several infiltration attempts have been stopped by the army.