Pathankot attack: Parliament panel damns security establishment

A parliamentary standing committee has damned union home ministry and security establishment for their "ill preparedness" to anticipate attack on Pathankot airbase despite having "credible intelligence inputs" and failing to counter terrorists "swiftly and decisively".

Coming down heavily, it noted that something is seriously wrong with our counter security establishment as despite fencing, floodlighting and patrolling by BSF personnel, Pakistani terrorists managed to sneak from across the border.

"The committee is unable to understand that in spite of terror alert sounded well in advance, how terrorists managed to breach the high security airbase and subsequently carried attack," the committee said.

The panel said it is constrained to note that despite concrete and credible intelligence inputs received from abducted and released Pathankot's SP and his friend and through interception of communication between terrorists and their handlers disclosing impending attack on a defence establishment, the security agencies were so ill prepared to anticipate threats in time and counter them swiftly and decisively.

The committee raised serious question marks on the role of Punjab Police for taking long time in arriving at the conclusion that the abduction of the SP was not just a criminal robbery but a serious national security threat.

Wondering why the terrorists let the SP and his friend off, the committee has asked the NIA to examine it thoroughly.

Besides, the committee said, "the role of narco-syndicate active in border areas of Punjab should be also be investigated as the terrorists might have taken help of channels or networks used by smugglers to infiltrate the border, shelter and carry out terror attack."

The committee rued that even after the attack they found airbase's security cover was not robust and it had poorly guarded perimeter wall.

"The wall did not have patrolling around it. The growth of shrubs and trees in the premises was still there which might have helped terrorists in hiding and making it difficult for the security forces to comb them out,"the committee said.

While recommending Pathankot airbase to be declared high security zone and made out of bounds for general public residing near, the committee noted that beefing up security establishment and putting infrastructure in place alone will not do and there is need to have proper intelligence gathering, real time sharing of inputs between various security agencies.

High security zone

While recommending Pathankot airbase to be declared high security zone and made out of bounds for general public residing near, the committee noted that beefing up security establishment and putting infrastructure in place alone will not do and there is need to have proper intelligence gathering, real time sharing of inputs between various security agencies.