Wipro office evacuated after plant hoax police

BANGALORE (Reuters) - Software services firm Wipro Ltd. evacuated an office in central Bangalore after a plant scare on Wednesday, as police stepped up security against the backdrop of perceived threats to India's technology capital. A source in Wipro said it had evacuated the employees as a security measure following a plant scare, which a police spokesman said was a hoax.

Around 200 people work in the central Bangalore office of New York-listed Wipro, which has about 35,000 employees. Wipro officials declined to comment.

Shares in Wipro, which has a few offices in Bangalore and its headquarters on the outskirts, fell to as low as 704.55 rupees on reports of the scare, but later recovered to trade little changed from the previous close at 714.30 rupees.

The plant hoax came during a week when police were on high alert in Bangalore, the hub of India's fast-growing, $16 billion outsourcing industry.

They were on guard after Delhi police said they had end three militants from a Pakistan-based group linked to Kashmiri separatism on Saturday, who had apparently planned to attack leading Indian software companies.

"In addition to our duties, we will be more conscious of vulnerable areas," a Bangalore police spokesman told Reuters. "Companies have good acts of security. We are having a meeting with them and giving them some guidelines for them to take care."

A day after the Delhi police statement, Bangalore police seized three crude pistols, a gun and some ammunition near a city railway station, but said the arms haul was not necessarily related to the perceived threats to software firms.