Karnataka Home Minister Basavaraj Bommai announced that a special anti-terrorist squad (ATS) will be set up specifically for Bengaluru to counter terror activities.

The ATS will work in tandem with Bengaluru police and will be similar to units set up in in other metro cities such as New Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai to curb criminal and terror activities in the city. 

"There was a plan to have an ATS specifically for Bengaluru due to its size and population. We want experienced and good officials and we will provide all the latest technology for them. We have taken note of previous incidents", Basavaraj Bommai told reporters on Tuesday.  

The announcement comes after the National Investigation Agency (NIA) highlighted the presence of Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) in several states, including Karnataka, on Monday. 

Speaking at the NIA's National Conference of chiefs of the Anti-Terrorism Squads (ATS) and Special Task Forces (STF), NIA's Director General YC Modi said, "In NIA's pan-India probe, we got to know that JMB is not only active in Assam, Odisha and Jharkhand but also they are spreading their activities in other states such as Bihar, Karnataka, Kerala and Maharashtra. A list of 125 suspected JMB members has already been circulated to the concerned states."

Earlier in September, the NIA said that a group of JMB terrorists had taken shelter at various hideouts in southern India which included places on the outskirts of Bengaluru to further the activities of the terror group after the 2014 Burdwan blast. 

The NIA had mentioned they had received information about hideouts in Attibele, Kadugodi, K.R. Puram, Chikkbanavara and Shikaripalya, Electronic City in Bengaluru.