Army Chief General Dalbir Singh Suhag on Wednesday debunked reports that the Pathankot airbase anti-terrorist operation lacked co-ordination between various agencies thereby prolonging the action to more than four days and said there was perfect synergy amongst all the stakeholders.
He also said here the operation led by Western Command chief lt General KJ Singh had three objectives, including saving assets like MIG-21 and MI-35 helicopters and protecting human lives as the airbase has a population of more than 10,000.
Addressing the annual Press conference ahead of the Army Day on January 15, Suhag said the other two objectives were containing the terrorists in a limited space and carry out a deliberate operation to reduce casualties and not allow the attackers to escape.
Rejecting reports that there was no co-ordination within the various security forces including the Army, National Security Guard (NSG) and IAF, he said the decision to bring in NSG was taken in case militants took hostages adding the NSG is “trained and ideally suited to handle such situations.”
Asserting that the Army and NSG worked jointly, Suhag said when four militants took refuge in elephantine grass and broken ground in the airbase, the NSG commandos provided fire support to the Army troops who were trying to locate and neutralise the attackers. One officer and two jawans were wounded in the firefight between the militants and Army before the infiltrators were finally killed, he added.
On reported delay in deploying the Army in and around the strategically-important airbase despite getting precise intelligence inputs well in advance, Suhag said the first team of nearly 200 Para Commandos of Special Forces landed there within two hours after he was alerted by National Security Adviser (NSA) Ajit Doval during the Crisis Management Group meeting in New Delhi.
Similarly, eight columns (one column has 80 soldiers) of the Army were moved to the airbase within the next hour to secure assets inside the complex and protect the outer perimeter, he said, adding no infiltration took place after the Army was deployed. Moreover, the local commanders handling the crisis on ground had complete liberty and freedom of action as they were in the best position to do so, Suhag said in the backdrop of reports that operation was micro-managed from New Delhi.
Refraining from playing the blame game as to how and when the terrorists managed to sneak into the heavily guarded complex, the Army Chief said all the facts and lapses in security will come out during the ongoing investigations by the National Investigation Agency (NIA). “It will be premature for me to comment on it. let us wait for some time before the facts come out,” he remarked.
On infiltration, Suhag said the reason why terrorists were using the Punjab border to enter the country was because anti-infiltration grid along the line of Control (loC) in Jammu & Kashmir was strengthened besides additional Army units deployed behind the BSF manning the International Border in Jammu region to thwart any attrack.