Suspected movement reported near Gurdaspur camp

The NIA teams continued to reconstruct the chain of events from the India-Pakistan worldwide border in the Bamiyal sector in north Punjab to the Pathankot air base.

Seven days after six terrorists struck, Pathankot and Gurdaspur districts remained on high alert.

Lovepreet Singh, 24, of Tibri said on 7 January two persons dressed in army fatigues asked him to “ruka, ruka” and “tumhari platoon kahan bethi hai”. However, cordon of the area continues, the SSP said.

Security agencies were on their toes, and a combing operation was on, in and around Tibri military cantonment area in Gurdaspur.

“We feel that this is the most well coordinated operation with NSG, Army, DSC, Garuds and police working in tandem to eliminate militants and secure all assets inside”, the officer said.

Extensive search operations were carried out jointly by Punjab police, army and BSF after some locals claimed to have seen two men in army fatigues moving suspiciously on Wednesday in Pandher village near the Tibri cantonment. “Last night we verified the reports of suspected militants given to us by a family in Tibri, we carried out search operation and left the area only when we were satisfied and now we are at Makora Pattan to search reports of suspected militants, we can’t ignore such reports”, he said. Army is using drone helicopters to locate possible terrorists and pressed into service bullet-proof vehicles, officials said. In this joint operation with the army, Punjab police have even deployed its Israel-trained SWAT team which have been specially trained to neutralize terrorists.

Army has installed flood lights and police is conducting door-to-door searches to flush out the suspected terrorists, they said.

A man suspected to be a terrorist was taken into custody yesterday by security forces near the Pathankot Air Force base.

The two border districts of Gurdaspur and Pahankot were on high alert, he said.