7 dead in India air base gun attack

The Pathankot air base houses dozens of fighter jets and is important for its strategic location about 50 kilometres from the Pakistan border.

Reports said that National Security Guards killed four militants at an air force base after a four-hour siege. A helicopter might be seen at around midday firing at an area contained in the Pathankot air force base, located about 430 kilometers (267 miles) north of New Delhi.

Officials said the gunmen, wearing army fatigues, managed to enter the Pathankot air base in India’s northwestern state of Punjab before dawn on Saturday.

In its official statement condemning the “terrorist attack”, Pakistan too made it clear that it understands Pathankot operations would have a bearing on talks between the two countries, noting that it wished to “build on the goodwill created by the high-level contacts between the two countries”.

Anticipating an attack after some armed men abducted SP of Punjab Police Salwinder Singh on Thursday night, a team of National Security Guard (NSG) commandos had been rushed on Friday night. “In response, preparatory actions had been taken by the Indian Air Force (IAF) to thwart any such attempt”.

In July, gunmen attacked a police station and a bus near Gurdaspur, a border town in Punjab, killing four officers and three civilians.

All of the Punjab state in India was put on alert.

A report from Islamabad said that Pakistan has condemned the terror attack. They added that while one terrorist was killed on the spot, the rest three scattered.

Kunwar Vijay Partap Singh, director general of police in Pathankot district, said that the attack began around 3.30am and that there were four to five attackers. India, which said that incident was orchestrated in Pakistan, has accused its neighbor of using terrorism to achieve foreign-policy goals, while the latter has said normal relations can be restored only when their dispute over the divided state of Kashmir is resolved.

12 pm: Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Saturday said India would give a fitting reply to Pakistan for the Pathankot attack.

It comes a week after Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid a surprise visit to Pakistan, the first by an Indian premier in 11 years and threatens to derail talks between the nuclear-armed rivals, who have fought three wars since independence in 1947.

Department dealing with the foreign affairs stated that Pakistan is willing to collaborate with India for a common cause of weeding-out extremism.

It remains unclear how many gunmen were involved in the attack on security troops Saturday evening. An army detachment was also positioned at the air base.