Security forces in India comb airbase as attack enters third day

Meanwhile, in view of the the attack on the Indian Air Force Base in Pathankot, National Security Adviser Doval’s visit to China to discuss “border issues” has been cancelled.

Pakistan should take “reciprocal steps” if it is proved that Pakistanis were involved in the terror attack on the IAF base in Punjab, a leading newspaper said on Monday.

Ties seemed to take a turn for the better after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited his Pakistani counterpart, Nawaz Sharif, late last month. “Combing and search operations continue”, Major General Dushant Singh of the National Security Guard (NSG) told media here.

As the attack continues, authorities in New Delhi have also ramped up security.

“Army and para-military forces have surrounded the entire air force base, which is spread in a huge area and has undulating terrain, buildings and forest area which has to be searched very carefully to avoid casualties”.

The number of troops killed in the attack rose to seven after four soldiers succumbed to their injuries overnight and another died after being wounded in an explosion, officials said.

The counter offensive against the terrorists at Punjab’s Pathankot air base was going on for the past 77 hours.

A military official who asked not to be named said the operation at the base is continuing.

There is also possibility that these four terrorists entered the Pathankot air base in the morning of 1 January, much before an alarm was sounded in the area to secure all vital installations later in the evening of that day, sources said.

Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh had previously announced on Twitter that all the attackers were dead.

He said the security forces were able to confine the terrorists to the place where they intruded and kept at a “reasonable distance” from where the assets were located.

Rebels in India’s portion of Kashmir have been fighting since 1989 for independence or merger with Pakistan.

The process of resumption of talks was set in motion after a meeting between the prime ministers of India and Pakistan in Paris on November 30 on the sidelines of Climate Change moot.

Pakistan has condemned the attack and said it wanted to build on the goodwill created by the impromptu meeting between Modi and Sharif last month.

The responses to the attacks from both countries have been muted so far, with neither New Delhi nor Islamabad giving any indication that the planned talks are under any threat.

The government is considering various options regarding the foreign secretary-level talks in the wake of the terror attack by suspected Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad. The opposition parties have said the Modi government’s policy on Pakistan “lacks clarity and consistency”.