After saying all the gunmen who attacked the Pathankot Indian Air Force (IAF) base were dead, Indian officials said at least two attackers remained, and vowed to kill them Monday to end a more than 48-hour siege.
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There has been criticism of the decision to deploy the NSG personnel flown from Delhi on Saturday morning in the air force base in Pathankot when a larger number of army commandos were available in nearby garrison in the border city itself Army’s special forces commandos were said to be better equipped to deal with the siege of the base.
Lieutenant General KJ Singh, General Officer, Commanding-in-Chief of the Western Command, reportedly said that besides 3,000 family members of Air Force personnel, there were 23 trainees from Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Nigeria inside the facility when the attack took place.
Thirty-four-year-old Lt Col and Group Captain Niranjan was heading the unit, they said, and was trying to clear and sanitize the body of a terrorist and the surrounding area when a cleverly concealed grenade blew up fatally injuring the officer and five others.
Punjab Congress president Capt Amarinder Singh on Thursday said the Pathankot operation in the wake of terror attack on the airbase was completely botched up. The NSG are special troops (to handle a hostage situation). The operation was a complete success. We had to avoid a hostage situation.
IAF helicopters flew over the base to assist ground forces in the counter offensive against the terrorists.
“The first contact was held at Military Engineer Service (MES) workshop.It was with Garuds”.
How did the terrorists manage to enter the air base in the first place and later bunker themselves behind steel doors?
“This is what we are looking at very seriously”, the official told NDTV.
What gives weight to the Indian security agencies is that their United States security experts think on the same line.
All vital installations and government offices were informed about a likely terror attack and efforts were mounted to track down the terrorists who had earlier killed a taxi driver, he said.
The statement added that flights operated to and from the airfield during this period.
As clearance operations continued, military officials were developing a plan to reinforce the base, a senior air force official in Delhi said, including putting up new fencing and employing more modern security technology.
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“Due to the active intelligence inputs and quick action taken by security forces, especially the IAF, we were able to ensure there was no damage to the assets of the air force”.
