Local commander could have dealt with Pathankot attack better: Lt Gen KJ Singh

Bhartesh Singh Thakur 

Tribune News Service        

Chandigarh, October 17 

Lt Gen KJ Singh (retd), who was Army Commander Western Command during Pathankot terrorist attack in 2016, said the local commander could have been better used. It was that National Security Guard (NSG) that carried out the operation, otherwise Lt Gen Singh would have led the attack.

Lt Gen Singh, who is Maharaja Ranjit Singh Chair Professor at Panjab University, was holding a session on senior journalist Nikhil A. Gokhale’s book- ‘Securing India- The Modi Way’ on the campus. The book has discussed surgical strikes inside Pakistan and Myanmar, Pathankot attack and Doklam standoff. 

Singh said we all learn lessons along the way. Clarifying what might have got into consideration while handing over operations to the NSG and not him, he said, “Pathankot had 40 foreign trainees. The NSG possibly was sent there to avoid hostage crisis. It was set up as a precautionary step. I secured my own base. At that time there was little information. The call was intercepted when one of the terrorists talked to his mother across the border.” 

He said, “The others could not even slit the throat of jeweler, which I had to do. And that he will be a martyr. The call was made from somewhere near the Pathankot base but it was a huge area.”

“The complexity was that air base was an autonomous area. The disturbed area act was not implemented there. You have to take permission. The second complexity was that after catching Ajmal Kasab (caught after Mumbai terrorist attack), there was a thought that at least one terrorist should be caught alive.” 

“I was trying to secure my areas as intercept was that they were sitting in a camp. The camp doesn’t mean air base,” said Lt Gen Singh. 

When Gokhale was asked, he said, “Pathankot was handled well. Army Chief was also in the loop. Why didn’t they ask local army commander to act...There was no loss of assets. Otherwise other attacks on airbases have resulted in loss of fighter aircrafts.” 

On political exploitation of surgical strikes across border in Myanmar and Pakistan, Nitin A Gokhale said, “Earlier surgical strikes used to be individual. You go and take revenge. But this surgical strike (in 2016 inside Pakistan) took place across seven locations and resulted in 75-80 casualties. PM Modi took the responsibility. Had anything happened wrong, he would have suffered politically.” 

PM had even suggested air strikes but experts refused for it, said Gokhale. 

He said , “Earlier also politicians have exploited victory in the 1971 war and also for Maldives action (in 1988 when Rajiv Gandhi government rescued President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom after a coup). But this government had not taken any credit of Doklam standoff.”