Singh also said his timely information ahead of the attack on the Indian Air Force base in Pathankot alerted security agencies and prevented a major terror strike.
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Pathankot: Indian troops backed by helicopters searched an air force base Monday after a weekend of fierce fighting with insurgents left seven soldiers dead.
Security officials said today that the combing operations may continue for a day or two at the forward base where seven security personnel and six terrorists were killed. Security experts also suspect that the huge cache of arms and ammunition that was recovered from the Pathankot airbase could have been dumped long before the six terrorists sneaked into the base.
“Through timely and prompt action by all agencies, the likely plan of the terrorists to destroy valuable assets of the Air Force has been foiled”, the Indian Defense Ministry had said in a statement at the time. Officials said the two were holed up in a building that was the living quarters of air force personnel.
An element of uncertainty today prevailed over next week’s Foreign Secretary-level talks with Pakistan amid indications that these may be deferred in the wake of the terror strike at the Pathankot air base.
“Operations will continue to be conducted until we can render the base fully safe”, said Singh. It has not prosecuted the perpetrators of the 2008 Mumbai massacre, or constrained the terrorist forces that operate, with the complicity of the military establishment, on its territory. This will hurt it immensely in its discussions with the United States about across-the-board action against terrorists.
The Pathankot attack, however, calls into question whether the Pakistan Army is on the same page as the civilian government as far as improvement of relations with India is concerned or if Nawaz Sharif was fooled into believing that it was. And from this point onwards the operations moved into a mess, giving the terrorists a handle that by all accounts they should not have had given the intelligence information, and the fact that the NSG was in place a good 8 to 10 hours before the attack.
It was not clear Monday whether any surviving attackers remained inside the base but troops were still searching. Talks between the two countries’ foreign secretaries were scheduled in New Delhi, only to be called off when the Pakistanis, like so many times before, met with Indian Kashmiri separatist leaders.
BJP sources said the government’s decision to start dialogue with Pakistan was driven by its intentions to show the world that it wanted peace with the neighbouring country and Modi’s surprise stopover in Lahore was a part of these efforts.
The air force base is on the highway that connects India’s insurgency-plagued Jammu and Kashmir state with the rest of the country.
First you had the Pakistan Foreign issuing an unusual statement late last evening that it would “follow up” on the leads provided to it regarding Pathankot attackers.
All political parties in India have condemned the attack, but there were no demands that the government call off the talks with Pakistan.
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The Nation, a Pakistani newspaper, quoted Sharif as saying: “We are with India in this hard time and will assist in any way possible…”
