Abducted’ SP Salwinder Singh to be questioned by NIA in Delhi on Monday09 Jan 2016 | 1:24 AM

NEW DELHI:

 

Going deeper into investigations into the Pathankot air base attack, the security agencies are of the view that the local handlers or local contacts of Pakistan-based terrorists and smugglers could be the “sleeper cells” of the dormant “Khalistan” movement that rocked Punjab between 1978 and 1996.Familial and fraternal links of suspected India-based conduits or “handlers” are being scanned by intelligence agencies and the Punjab Police to see if any of them happened to be related with Pakistan-based “pro-Khalistan” persons.Obtaining phone numbers of taxi drivers in India or reaching the IAF base in the dead of the night would not have been possible for terrorists without local help, which could have been arranged by way of threat or lure for quick money. A thriving cross-border drug trade and conduits are also being probed.It was clear that an insider at the IAF base had revealed the exact vulnerable spots inside the 12-m-high fence that ran around the 24-sq km air base at Pathankot. Six terrorists carrying heavy equipment such as mortars and around 50 kg bullets could not have entered the air base without a prior knowledge of the possible entry points and change of sentries’ duties, said a source.Meanwhile, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) today said Punjab Police SP-level official Salwinder Singh would be questioned by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in Delhi.Among the questions that are rankling the investigators are: Did Salwinder Singh know the murdered taxi driver Ikagar Singh? The driver had got a call from Pakistan and moved to a certain location to pick up “passengers”. The terrorists used Ikagar’s mobile phone to make calls to Pakistan, this itself is unusual as not many taxi drivers would subscribe to international dialling facility, which the telecom companies extend only after due diligence.It’s being probed if Ikagar had earlier also picked up such passengers in the middle of the night after calls from Pakistan.Investigators also want to ascertain why the SP was without his personal guard in the dead of the night near the border and why he was travelling in a personal vehicle with a blue beacon atop.The terrorists reportedly left him and took away his car and his friend jeweller Rajesh Verma. Around 2.30 am, the SP called up his seniors to inform them about his abduction. The SP’s car was found at Tajpur village, which is just 1 km away from the base. Who guided the terrorists to Tajpur? Was it Rajesh Verma? These are some other questions that need to be answered.

More areas searched, but in vain

• Pathankot: The police conducted a search operation in Makkoran Pattan area, 20 km from here, after some locals claimed that they had spotted two military uniform-clad ‘militants’ lurking in the area in the morning. As many as 12 labourers are camping in Makkoran Pattan area to engage in manual labour. One of them, Nawab Ali, claimed to have spotted some terrorists. Till the time of filing of this report, the police team could not locate any terrorists as claimed by Nawab Ali.

Terrorists might have sneaked in via tunnels

Vijay Mohan,Tribune News Service,Chandigarh, January 8

The Border Security Force’s (BSF) stance that the fence on the India-Pakistan border was not breached in the run-up to the terror attack on the Pathankot Air Force Station earlier this week and there still being no clarity on how the terrorists came across have raised the spectre of tunnels being used for infiltration.There have been several known instances of cross-border tunnels being detected by the Army and security forces along the International Border (IB) as well as the Line of Control (LoC).“Though the feasibility of terrorists exploiting riverine gaps along the border is being investigated, the possibility of them using tunnels simply cannot be ruled out,” a source in the security establishment said.“What is most worrisome is that it is virtually impossible to detect such tunnels unless some specific intelligence is available or troops stumble across them by chance,” he said. Ground penetration radars and other sensors are available, but these cannot be used to cover every inch of the border stretch or deployed during regular patrolling.Sources point out that with engineering support from the military establishment boring such tunnels, some of which may be several hundred metres long, is not difficult. Their exit could be concealed inside a shack or a barn like structure near the border or even under dense vegetation or crevice.The use of tunnels is not new, but has been going on for a long time across the entire stretch of the border with Pakistan for smuggling as well as terrorist activities. In 2008, the Jodhpur Police unearthed a tunnel in the Barmer sector that was being used for drug-running.In July 2012, a 400-metre long tunnel dug 20 feet below the ground, complete with ventilation and breathing system, was discovered near Samba, not very far from Pathankot, after a portion of its ceiling collapsed. In August 2014, a 50 metre tunnel was discovered near Pallanwala in the Jammu sector and the same year another tunnel about 150 metre long and 20 feet deep was detected near Pargual in Jammu and Kashmir.Besides historical prevalence, cross-border tunnels have also been in vogue in other parts of the world in the recent past. They have been found in strife-torn Eastern Europe, US-Mexico border, US-Canada border and the Middle East.