Five terrorists, suspected to be from Pakistani, were killed in a gunfight that lasted nearly 15 hours after they breached a high-security security perimeter and entered a frontline Indian Air Force (IAF) base near Pathankot town in northern Punjab early on Saturday to carry out an attack, police said. Many news sites have uploaded links with minimal visuals, and people click to see it now for more information. However, the article has compiled the available details.
Here is what we know about the attack:
A pre-dawn attack
The gunmen drove a hijacked police vehicle when they launched the attack at 03:30 (22:00 GMT Friday).
They entered living quarters at the base, but were contained there and so were unable to cause any damage to military hardware, said air force spokeswoman Rochelle D’Silva.
Later on Saturday morning, fresh gunfire was heard and a helicopter seen firing at an area inside the base.
Gunshots rang out at the facility in Pathankot around 3.30am as the group of five men in army-style clothing — believed to be operatives of the Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorist group — launched the daring operation. The attack came less than 24 hours after an alarm was sounded in the state over the assault of a top police officer by suspected Pakistani terrorists.
‘Attackers from Jaish-e-Mohammed’
A defence source said the terrorists from JeM, blamed for the December 2001 attack on Parliament that killed 11 people, had probably infiltrated about three days ago.
The attackers, with huge quantity of RDX in their possession, made their way to the base from the rear area where there is a jungle.
Security forces were put on high alert on Friday after Gurdaspur superintendent of police (headquarters) Salwinder Singh said he and his associates were kidnapped by five armed men in army fatigues.
How security forces fought back
The terrorists, who struck just a week after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s unscheduled visit to Lahore, could not penetrate the defence cordon at the air base as they met with effective response from the security forces.
A team of 50 commandos of the National Security Guard (NSG) led the fight against the militants, a top security official said. The NSG commandos were flown to Pathankot on Friday night in view of a security threat after the abduction and thrashing of Singh by terrorists, who dodged security forces and escaped.
But by the end of the afternoon, police confirmed the base was secure.