Threat to blow up NSE, BSE buildings; security tightened

MUMBAI: An anonymous e-mail threatening to blow up the Bombay and National Stock Exchanges was received on Monday, prompting the police to step up security at the key buildings.

"An NSE official has received the e-mail and I asked for security to be beefed up at the buildings immediately after being told about it," Joint Commissioner of Police (Law and Order) KL Prasad said.

Prasad said teams of the Bomb Detection and Disposal Squad had been posted outside the National Stock Exchange building situated at the suburban Bandra-Kurla Complex and the Bombay Stock Exchange building in Fort, South Mumbai.

"Additionally, we have asked our men to sensitise the private security guards of the exchanges. Frisking will have to be very strong," Prasad said, adding other things like the origins of the e-mail were being traced.

The BSE building was one of the twelve targets where bombs were hurled on March 12, 1993. In the past too, BSE and the NSE had received bomb threat calls.

The latest threat came on a day when the BSE Sensex zoomed by a whopping 640 points to breach the historic 19,000-mark.