After Mumbai, Chennai gets its first NSG hub

Chennai: Home Minister P Chidambaram on Wednesday inaugurated the second National Security Guard (NSG) in Chennai.

He said that special forces of the Army will be used to set up anti-terror hubs in Bangalore and Jodhpur.

Chidambaram also said that setting up of NSG did not mean there was an increase in terror threat to the country.

“We are also using special forces of the Army. Bangalore hub is by the special forces of the Army. I am trying to set up a special forces of the Army in Jodhpur and one in Guwahati using the Border security force,” he said.

“Establishing NSG hubs will increase its flexibility and reach and it does not mean that terrorist threat has gone up in the country,” he told reporters in Mumbai.

Asked whether there would be more NSG hubs, he said the four metros of Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad and Kolkata are covered in the first phase.

Referring to the November Mumbai terror attacks during which it took more than 12 hours for NSG to arrive from Gurgaon, he said NSG hubs would decrease the response time and would enable it to reach any part of the country quickly in case of any terror threat.

Chennai NSG hub is the second to be inaugurated after the one in Mumbai on Tuesday, six months after the terror strike in the country's commercial capital.

The NSG hubs in Hyderabad and Kolkata are also slated to be made operational, meeting the July one deadline for setting up four NSG units.