Addressing the media after a visit to the forward base that was under siege from Saturday morning, he said the terrorists were neutralised in an operation that was over in 38 hours but combing operations are still on and may continue for a day or two. Parrikar said combing operations are still taking place in Pathankot and are only likely to be called off on Wednesday.
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Manohar Parrikar stopped short of saying the operation had ended, but Indian officials have said repeatedly that only six gunmen were involved.
He said barring one building where the terrorists took shelter, no other building was even damaged because the security personnel managed to corner the raiders in a corner of the sprawling base.
It’s equally important to remember that the air base attack, though it killed seven Indian soldiers and six militants, doesn’t change the bigger picture.
Indian policemen patrol at a residential area near the Indian air force base in Pathankot on Monday.
MajGen Dushyant Singh, from India’s elite National Security Guard, said it could take a “long time” to hold the base fully risk-free, due to the size as well as geography. “If not, the architects of the Pathankot attack need to be brought to justice”.
“He (General Raheel Sharif) and his ISI are deeply complicit in the attack in Pathankot, the attack earlier in Gurdaspur and the terror which is being perpetrated in India since 1980”, he added.
Parrikar said the militants’ weapons included AK-47 assault rifles with makeshift rocket launchers attached, mortar rounds that could be fired from the launchers, pistols, and 50-60 kilograms (110-130 pounds) of ammunition.
There was, however, no formal statement by the government of Pakistan about the telephonic conversation. The council is a coalition of Kashmiri militant groups that have been fighting Indian rule in the Himalayan region. He gave no details on those intercepts in an interview Tuesday with the television news channel TimesNow.
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According to official sources, Doval and Janjua talked about various information and leads, like the Pakistani numbers which the attackers had called and their intercepts with India asserting that an effective action on part of Pakistan was important.
