Pathankot airbase - Terrorist attack

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The Centre’s eagerness to claim credit for what it said was a successful coordinated response to the terrorist attack on the Pathankot airbase lay in tatters on Sunday morning with the discovery of two more terrorists in action, death of a seasoned NSG commando and injury to many of his colleagues.

Sunday morning’s nasty surprise was in fact in line with the many missteps since the terror threat was discovered on the early morning of January 1. Within the military and the rest of the security establishment, and outside, several questions are being raised about the way the entire operation was handled.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi landed in the national capital on Sunday evening, and directly went into a huddle with senior officials including National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar and others to discuss the terror strike.

The PM’s meeting was the culmination of daylong consultations by Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj and others with various stakeholders. No dramatic change in the PM’s Pakistan policy was expected immediately, sources hinted.

The morning began peacefully in Pathankot airbase, and there was no inkling of the dramatic events that were to unfold over the next several hours.

Around 10 a.m., Lieutenant Colonel Niranjan Kumar and his team from the National Security Guard were examining the body of a terrorist killed the previous evening, and probably trying to defuse an explosive attached to it, when the device detonated, killing him and injuring the others.

Security force casualties now stood at seven dead. “There seems to have been an accident, in which five NSG personnel were injured. Leader of the team Lt. Col. Niranjan succumbed to his injuries,” Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi said.

And by 12.20 p.m. the security forces realised that two more terrorists were alive, when firing came from different locations. By evening, the two were killed in the operations, sources said, thus taking the total number of terrorists killed until Sunday evening to six.