Something ‘seriously wrong’

Mukesh Ranjan

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 3

Noting that the role of Punjab Police was “questionable and suspicious”, a parliamentary panel has rapped the Centre for failing to avert the terror attack on the Pathankot air base early this year. It has observed that there is “something seriously wrong” with the country’s counter-terror architecture, as the security set-up is not “robust for even a sensitive place like the air base”. 

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs placed its report in Parliament today. It said it was beyond anybody’s comprehension how the terrorists managed to “breach” the high-security air base and carry out the strike in spite of a terror alert sounded well in advance. 

The panel, headed by Congress Rajya Sabha member P Bhattacharya, said, it was “constrained to note that despite concrete and credible Intelligence inputs from the abducted and released SP of Pathankot and his friend and also through interception of communication between terrorists and their handlers”, the security agencies were ill-prepared to anticipate the threat and counter it decisively.

“The role of Punjab Police is very questionable and suspicious as even after abduction of the Punjab Police SP and his friend, the Punjab Police took a long time in arriving at the conclusion that their abduction was not just a criminal robbery but a serious national security threat,” the report said. Calling it strange that the terrorists had chosen to let off the SP and his friend, it suggested that this be thoroughly examined by the National Investigation Agency (NIA).

It blamed the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad for the attack, pointing out that ammunition found on the slain terrorists had a “Made in Pakistan” marking.

The panel dwelled on the fact that a few armed terrorists “cannot sneak into the Indian side without the active support of Intelligence agencies and the army of the neighbouring country”, while ruing the fact  that despite fencing, floodlighting and BSF patrolling, Pakistani terrorists had managed to sneak in.