India’s minister, Rajnath Singh said the Indian government would release a very detailed statement on July 28.
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During yesterday’s operation, BSF had sounded Punjab Police for any help required from the border guarding force in terms of men and machinery for the successful completion of the offensive.
Deputy police commissioner Abhinav Trikha said the attackers appeared to be holed up in the residential quarters of the police station and were “firing continuously”. Police in the frontier state of Punjab killed three unidentified assailants who had pulled up at the police complex in a stolen auto, automatic weapons blazing, at about 5 am (2330 GMT Sunday).
The attackers reportedly opened fire on a bus and hijacked a vehicle before storming the police station.
The slain policemen included a senior police officer Baljit Singh.
Sources in intelligence agencies and Punjab Police said here on Tuesday that the track of the Global Positioning System sets revealed that the terrorists had moved from Shakargarh area in Pakistan along the India-Pakistan border on Sunday and entered India.
The gang is believed to have sneaked into the Indian territory through the India-Pakistan border in Jammu. The Gurdaspur attack is the first major Fidayeen strike in Punjab after Beant Singh’s killing in 1995 allegedly by a Khalistan Liberation Force suicide bomber. Minister of state for home Kiren Rijiju said reports the attackers were holding people hostage inside the police station appeared to be false. The police station they stormed was in Gurdaspur district, which borders Pakistan. Government sources also denied involvement of Sikh attackers thus junking the theory of emergence of Khalistan terror.
The gunmen then took over an abandoned structure inside the police compound in Dinanagar, a town about 20km (12miles) from the Pakistani border, and fired at security forces that have surrounded them. Five explosives were found on railway tracks. “We will have to learn lessons from the incident”, he said. The home minister spoke to Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal and National Security Adviser Ajit Doval on the Gurdaspur siege.
Singh said that Pakistan is providing shelter to these terrorist groups.
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“The government is committed to give a befitting reply to those who try to undermine India’s security”.
