Securitry failures at Pathankot in focus with Antony too raising criticism

Thiruvananthapuram: Security failures during the terrorist attack at air base at Pathankot are attracting increased attention with former Defence Minister A. K. Antony too alleging neglect of security and preparedness.

The failures had occurred despite credible intelligence received days in advance. The abduction of Gurudaspur Superintendent of Police Salwinder Singh and two others with him was ignored though the officer had informed the authorities after they were left on the roadside by the terrorists who had hijacked his vehicle. Though National Security Guards were mobilised, they were not deployed. Why they had to be called in when the army and air force have its own soldiers is another question.

Reuters has reported that one of the soldiers who died had just left his house with a gun on hearing shots to fight the terrorists. This raised questions whether there was coordinated and professional action against the terrorists.

Even Lieutenant Colonel Niranjan Kuamar, who died, seemed to have acted on his own in turning around the body of the dead terrorist leading to explosion that killed him. Normally, he needed to have asked only those under him to deal with the body. It was a known thing that terrorists may carry explosives in their body for suicide attacks. So, personnel with protective gear or robots should have been deployed for defusing explosives.

Military authorities have claimed that the terrorists were better trained than those who attacked Mumbai. However, that does not explain why professional forces of India had to suffer several casualties in neutralizing six terrorist in their own base.

The authorities have prematurely announced that the terrorist were neutralized and the Centre had even issued a press release to that effect. It was after fixing a visit of Union Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar to the air base that it was detected that a terrorist was at large.

Mr. A. K. Antony said on Thursday that failure to prevent the infiltration of the terrorists into the air base despite advance information was serious. The Prime Minister should explain what had happened, he demanded while speaking at a function here.

Meanwhile, India is considering postponement of plans for foreign secretary level talks with Pakistan unless Pakistan takes action against the perpetrators in Pakistan on the basis of information provided by India. Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has called a series of meeting with top officials to discuss the issue.