Is IPL soft target for terror?

The Indian Premier League (IPL), which has now been shifted to South Africa, was the prime target of a large scale terrorist, targeting a host of foreign cricket players, a leading American think-tank Stratfor said today.

"Intelligence of India apparatus is thought to have warned the central government of a flood of specific pressure against both Indian and foreign cricket players," said Stratfor. Based on the intelligence information it has from various sources, Stratfor in its latest analysis said it received indications early on from Indian security sources that the IPL tournament was a prime target for another large-scale Islamist militant operation following the November 2008 Mumbai attacks.

"Warnings of specific threats against the players came from the governments of the states hosting matches, including Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.” Given that these two states respectively are home to the information technology hubs of Hyderabad and Bangalore both of which have a heavy foreign presence and are where multinational corporations doing business in India are concentrated, these states are at a particularly high risk of attack," it said.