More than four months after visiting Pathankot airbase in February 2016, Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs P Bhattacharya on Tuesday claimed that soon after visiting the airbase in the wake of the January 2 terror attack, they had warned the Union Government of another attack, following which a high alert was sounded in the area and the security of the strategically-important airbase was beefed up.
Interacting with media persons here in Jammu after completing a visit to border areas of RS Pura, Bhattacharya, a Congress MP, claimed that after they raised an alarm, the Centre had alerted the security agencies and conducted comprehensive searches in the area to prevent another strike. In the same vein he hastened to add, the airbase has been secured now.
“How they were hiding there, it is not my business to find out. But as we got this information from villagers, it was very clear to us that they were hiding somewhere,” he said.
The Parliamentary Standing Committee had earlier visited areas along the Indo-Bangladesh border in North East, and the International Border with Pakistan in Punjab and Rajasthan. Bhattacharya also batted for formation of a commission to address the issues of soldiers deployed along the International Border. He said, We interacted with BSF jawans and noted their hardships before forwarding the same for action by the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Foreign Ministry.” He said, the villagers had raised the issue of awarding adequate compensation for land, early settlement of cases, safe shelter and community bunkers, ambulance facilities etc. “We have noted down their grievances and will forward them to Home Ministry,” he added.