Security beefed up in New York following Mumbai blasts

Washington, July 12 (UNI) New York City, with a teeming work force that commutes daily from adjacent New Jersey and Connecticut states, beefed up its security sending hundreds of additional officers to patrol subways and conduct random bag searches in the wake of the deadly blasts on a busy suburban rail system in Mumbai, India.

A spokeswoman for the Washington DC Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, which carries 1.2 million subway and bus passengers each day, said officials in the capital would watch how the effort went in New York and would follow it if necessitated by circumstances.

Transit officials in Atlanta and Salt Lake City notified passengers that they reserved the right to inspect packages and bags, but the number of searches has been very small. Utah, has a small 20-mile rail system that carries 45,000 passengers a day.

At some places like the busy transportation hubs in New York City, such as Penn Station, Grand Central Station and the Port Authority bus terminal police personnel, in combat gear were seen patrolling the platforms and at the entrance of the transit system.

The police began random searches of backpacks and packages and any luggage brought into the New York City subways (underground transit system).

It was a precautionary measure undertaken after the latest bomb blasts that targeted India, officials said.

Systematic search of packages in the New York City subways, was necessary because at least 4.7 million ride on transit trains everyday, according to the police.

New York authorities say they have a responsibility to the 8.1 million people that live in this city. We're in a city that's been attacked twice successfully by terrorists, almost 3,000 people killed here four years ago, so we might have a different set of priorities than other folks.

They fear that terrorists could use timed or remote-controlled explosives hidden in briefcases, suitcases, and under strollers .

At some of the busiest of the city's 468 stations, riders were asked to open their bags for a visual check before they go through the turnstiles.

Those who refuse will not be permitted to bring the package into the subway but will be able to leave the station without further questioning, officials said.

The police made it a point to clarify that the basis for the checks would not be based on race, ethnicity or religion. They said officers would focus on backpacks and containers that are large enough to carry explosive devices or ordnance.

Transit officials in several other cities - Boston, Washington and San Francisco - said they were considering similar measures, although few have actually started randomly checking bags.

The police will focus on stations with heavy Manhattan-bound traffic in the morning and on stations with commuters leaving Manhattan in the evening.

Riders will be asked to open their bags or allow them to be sniffed by trained dogs. Many riders commute daily from New Jersey, and even Connecticut to reach their work places in Manhattan in New York City.

The Transit Bureau in New York has 2,200 officers and 500 supervisors, and hundreds more have been added for subway patrols.

It cannot be said easily how many riders can feasibly be screened, for instance, at Times Square, there are 165,876 turnstile on a typical weekday. Some of the system's turnstiles are used by a dozen passengers a minute.

Many passengers said they favored the searches, as long as they did not involve racial profiling.

''They should check bags, but they can't discriminate,'' a passenger said.

''You can't tell Indian from Pakistani, you can't tell West Indian from black, you can't tell Arab from Mediterranean,'' he added.

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