It has become quite evident that the Pakistani terrorists who attacked the Indian Air Force base in Pathankot at the start of the new year were helped every step of the way by Indian incompetence or complicity, but for which the attackers would not have gained entry into Indian territory, let alone to the sensitive Air Force station. The country needs to ask tough questions. From border management to protecting the integrity of the perimeter of the Air Force station, there were failures all along the way.
There are also strong suspicions that the Punjab police is mixed up with drug smugglers and suppliers, and sections of it knowingly helped the Pakistanis on their mission. If the Punjab police is involved with the drug mafia, is it without the knowledge of the political bigwigs in the state? Based on false or incomplete information supplied by a section of the government, the country was patting itself on the back to begin with for having dealt with the terrorists effectively in less than a day, but a more sombre assessment was forced on us in the light of the terrorists holding their ground for three days and keeping the country on tenterhooks. In our own annals it is hard to think of a comparable case of ineptitude, and possibly corruption, involving elements of the security set-up.
The political executive at the national level was also found to be at sixes and sevens when faced with the serious challenge to our national security. The Union home ministry was bypassed in mobilising the National Security Guard for despatch to Pathankot although this particular force comes under the jurisdiction of the home ministry. The defence minister too appears to have had little information about what was going on in the early stages of crisis-management. Indeed, experts believe that involving the NSG was the wrong response and the matter should have been left to Army commandos.
The Army could have responded immediately as some three divisions — and their special forces and quick response units — are available in and around Pathankot. The official response that the NSG was despatched keeping in mind a possible hostage situation at the airbase seems at this stage an unsatisfactory explanation. The most shocking aspect of the episode is that there was actionable intelligence available on the basis of which steps were indeed initiated to fight off the terrorists. And yet the whole exercise has been a massive botch-up. Pakistani terrorists had struck neighbouring Gurdaspur last July. The deficiencies found in border management on that occasion, it transpires, had not been set right in six months, permitting the Pathankot attackers to gain entry through the same route, and by using the same methods. A penetrating and credible inquiry is needed.
