NEW DELHI: The Union Home Ministry has asked several states to conduct mock drills on May 7 amid rising tensions with Pakistan following the Pahalgam terror attack, government sources said on Monday.
The measures to be taken during the drill include operationalisation of air raid warning sirens and training of civilians on civil defence aspects to protect themselves in the event of a "hostile attack", they said.
The other measures are provisions of crash blackout measures, early camouflaging of vital plants and installations and updation of evacuation plans and their rehearsal.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been holding a series of high-level meetings, including with top defence functionaries, as India weighs its options for countermeasures against the April 22 terror attack which left 26 civilians, mostly tourists, dead.
Modi has vowed to pursue the perpetrators and those part of the conspiracy to the "ends of the earth" to inflict punishment on them "beyond their imagination."
Meanwhile, a group of suspected Pakistani hackers, named 'Pakistan Cyber Force' on Monday claimed that they have gained access to sensitive data from multiple defense websites including Indian Military Engineering Service and Manohar Parrikar Institute of Defence Studies and Analysis.
Sources in the government said the claim suggests that the attackers might have accessed personal information related to defence personnel, including their login credentials.