7 dead in India air base gun attack

“I congratulate our armed forces and other security forces on successfully neutralising all the five terrorists in “Pathankot Operation”, Rajnath Singh had tweeted on Saturday evening.

Gunfire had appeared to cease by late morning, before breaking out again two hours later.

An army official confirmed the operation had ended and forces were checking the area for residual explosives.

“We are searching the area”.

Singh did not confirm reports that up to three Indian security personnel had been killed carrying out the operation.

“Five to six security personnel were injured and they have been evacuated to hospital”.

Air force spokeswoman Rochelle D’Silva says the gunmen entered the living quarters of the Pathankot air force base, about 430 kilometers (267 miles) north of New Delhi, but were not able to penetrate the area with fighter helicopters and other equipment. The attackers, in army fatigues, tried to storm into the military base that houses MiG Bison aircraft and MI-25 attack helicopters, but could not penetrate beyond the periphery. Union Minister of State in the PM’s office Dr Jitender Singh said, “Forces who do not want peace between the two countries do such things to derail the talks”.

– Salwinder Singh, a superintendent of police, said he and his associates were going in his multi-utility vehicle to a religious shrine on Thursday night when they were signalled to stop by the five men.

SUV near Dinanagar. The terrorists thrashed them, dumped the SP on the road a few kilometres away and slashed another person. They argue that this attack is “yet another attempt by terrorist groups and vested interests in the Pakistan army to scuttle the peace process”.

Speaking in Geo News program “Naya Pakistan”, Siddiqui said India should understand that Pakistan itself had been one of the greatest victims of terrorist attacks on its soil.

Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar met National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and three service chiefs on Saturday to asses the situation in the wake of the attack.

Has ISI, which we understand planned or actively helped this attack, sent a clear message to India and to Nawaz Sharif?

According to early accounts, the attack resembled a similar raid a year ago by gunmen on a border town in Punjab that killed nine people.

Pakistan moved to condemn the attack Saturday afternoon, describing it as a “terrorist incident”. “Pakistan is our neighbour, we want peace, but any terror attack on India will get a befitting response”, he said.

And while insurgents frequently target police in the volatile Kashmir region, Punjab, a majority-Sikh state, has largely been spared the violence.

New Delhi later suspended all talks with Pakistan after Islamist gunmen attacked the Indian city of Mumbai in November 2008, killing 166 people.

They had earlier hijacked a police officer’s auto and driven it to the heavily guarded base – tactics used in earlier attacks believed to have been perpetrated by Pakistani-trained militants, Punjab’s police chief Suresh Arora told Reuters.

The two countries agreed to resume a peace process in 2011 but tensions have spiked in recent years, with cross-border shelling in Kashmir claiming dozens of lives since 2014.