Indian security forces patrol inside the Indian air force base that came under attack Saturday in Pathankot, India, Jan. 3, 2016. Immediately after the alarm was sounded, security at all vital installations, including the Pathankot air base in Punjab, was enhanced to the highest level to make it hard for the terrorists to mount an attack.
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The attack comes just days after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif on December 25, 2015, in a bid to promote peace between the two countries.
He said that the terrorists have come “well prepared” and are “heavily armed” with an aim to target the strategic assets of the Air Force.
In New Delhi, two trains were delayed early after officials received information about a possible bomb threat on a train running between the capital and Lucknow to the south-east, railways spokesman Neeraj Sharma said.
The breaching of the base’s defences has raised questions about lax security on the global border in Punjab, which is a known route for drug smugglers and is less closely guarded than the disputed frontier running through Kashmir. “We condemn all forms of terrorism and we believe all sides should enhance dialogue and cooperation to combat all forms of terrorism”, she said.
Security officials suspect the gunmen belong to the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed, the group that staged the 2001 attack on the Indian parliament which brought the two countries to the brink of war. On Saturday afternoon, police said the base had been secured. Five attackers have been killed so far; while combing operation is still going on to clear the base.
“These kinds of attacks are nothing new and have generally been the outcome of the dispute of India and Pakistan over Kashmir”, said Noor Ahmed Baba, a political scientist at Central University in Indian Kashmir’s capital, Srinagar. The three attackers then killed four policemen and three civilians before being shot dead by security forces.
1 pm: National Security Advisor Ajit Doval’s visit to China has been cancelled due to the attacks in Pathankot’s air force base.
Questions are now being raised in New Delhi on whether it will impact talks scheduled to be held between the foreign secretaries of the two countries in Islamabad later this month.
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Previous attempts at dialogue between the nuclear-armed neighbours have been derailed by similar incidents but, as Pakistani authorities condemned the raid, experts suggested the latest negotiations would prove more durable. The opposition parties have said the Modi government’s policy on Pakistan “lacks clarity and consistency”.
