No clarity on number of terrorists after firing, explosions inside Air Force base in ‘afternoon’; martyrs’ toll climbs up

Tribune News Service,New Delhi, January 3

Indicating that it was unsure of how many terrorists were holed up in the Pathankot air base premises, the Centre today said that the security forces had contained two terrorists in a specified area, besides neutralising four of them. Yesterday, the Punjab DGP had put the figure of those gunned down at five. The counter-terror operations continued for the second consecutive day and the forces would be able to sanitise the campus by night, as the operation was in its last leg, the government hoped. There was no news of that till last reports came in.Editorial: Stay the Lahore courseUnion Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi, at a press conference, refused to take questions on the contradiction between his claim that the “operation continues” and that of Home Minister Rajnath Singh, who yesterday said in a Twitter post that the operation had ended with the killing of five terrorists. Rajnath, however, later deleted his Twitter post.Mehrishi said, “We are sure that still there are at least two more terrorists as firing has come from two places. But we are not sure whether there are some more. We will come to know the number of terrorists only after completion of the operation and body count.”While confirming that four terrorists were killed in the gunfight yesterday and the firing resumed today afternoon at two places in the air base, Mehrishi, when asked repeatedly about the Home Minister’s tweets, said, “I am giving you authentic information and I don’t know what others are saying.” Denying any lapse on the part of the security establishment, he said, “Some casualties are obvious when there is an operation of this scale.” He said so far there were seven casualties — six Air Force men, which included five Defence Security Corps personnel and a Garuda commando, and one NSG officer, Lt Colonel Niranjan. Eight IAF personnel and 12 NSG commandos were also injured. Asked when the operation would be over, DG (Air Operations) of IAF Air Marshal Anil Khosla said they were not sure about that.