Pathankot: Terrorists nabbed but questions remain

A deeply offended India mulled whether to call off the India-Pakistan Foreign Secretary level talks due on 15 Jan or to seek accountability from Pakistan govt

More than 60 hours after six Pakistani militants entered the Indian Air Force (IAF) base in Pathankot, five were neutralised and combing operations will continue for 48 hours to check if any others were lurking aboutin the cantonment.

The sixth has not been identified yet. The United Jihad Council (UJC), an umbrella group of Pakistan-based jihadi outfits, formed in November 1990 to bring on a single platform all the outfits involved in the terrorist violence in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), claimed responsibility for the Pathankot attack.

Press releases from the UJC reached the offices of most major newspapers in Srinagar in the afternoon today. However, the government debunked these claims as a ploy to divert attention from the real conspirators. In a parallel operation three men having Pakistan SIM cards, pistols with Brazilian, Chinese and Pakistani markings and other explosive material were caught from Mohali not far from the Wagah border. Opinion is divided whether these men were drug smugglers or if they had a role to play in the Pathankot attack.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a meeting with top officials, including National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar to discuss the attack. Modi was briefed by Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar. Doval who was to leave for Beijing, postponed his visit.

However, Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif who was on a two-day state visit to Sri Lanka starting 4 January, proceeded to Colombo as scheduled. After a day of furious fighting, five militants were killed so no interrogation could take place as to the route of ingress or who theirreal handlers were.

The search for the sixth was on. But a deeply offended India mulled whether to call off the India-Pakistan Foreign Secretary level talks due on 15 January; or to seek accountability from the Pakistan government, which has pledged time and again to stop all terrorist activity on its soil.

All the indications are that the talks between Foreign Secretaries will be rescheduled and NSAs will meet first to discuss Pathankot. However, perhaps anticipating this, theSyed Salahuddin-led UJC spoke up and took responsibility to deflect fingerspointing at the Pakistani state.

The UJC was originally formed with twin objective: to prevent rival terrorist groups from squabbling among themselves; and to create a command and control structure of the Hizb ul Mujahideen-led UJC to enable Pakistani intelligence to have tighter control over its running.

The Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and Al Badr Mujahideen were broughtinto the UJC. The headquarters of the UJC is at Muzaffarabad in Pakistanoccupied Kashmir (PoK). But the government said the men who had been killed werefrom Multan - not PoK.

They said this was evident from the call records.Moreover, the level of training and ammunition used suggested institutionalized training. "Indian government and its media have been suffering from Pakistan phobia. By accusing Pakistan for every attack, India neither succeededin past to malign the Kashmir freedom struggle nor will it get anything infuture through malicious propaganda," the UJC spokesperson said.

He clarified that militants in Kashmir have been fightingIndian Forces from last 27 years and during this period India adopted allavailable means to crush the Kashmir "movement".

"The attack on Pathankot Air Base from Kashmiri Mujhadeen carries a message to India that no security establishment and garrison are outof reach from militants," said the spokesman.

"Instead of accusing Pakistan, India should read the writingon the wall and without wasting any time should provide an opportunity to thepeople of Kashmir to decide their future," the statement read. However, India is not rushing to attribute blame or makeaccusations.

All the indications are it will move deliberately and slowly. The National Security Guard (NSG) said merely that the attack was a fidayeen attack- which means those who mounted it knew they were going to their death. "These terrorists had come well prepared and were heavily armed," the NSG said at a short briefing.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who attended a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) said the government wanted to capture asmany militants alive as possible, which is why the operation took longer.

He said that as the operation was still going on (one militant was yet to found)it would be premature to comment. The government seemed to suggest that thedelay in countering the militants was not because of inefficiency but as partof a deliberate strategy.