Pathankot attack: The saga of stage-managed activities continues

The attack on India’s Pathankot air base, which on Sunday night was still going on, is only a stage-managed activity produced by the Modi Sarkar itself, regional experts point out. In all, there have been at least three such incidents in the year 2015 and then 2016 has begun with Pakistan being again blamed for the assault on the Pathankot air base.

The experts, who had earlier predicted such stage-managed activities by the Indian establishment, wondered why several such incidents always occurred near the border. They said that one does not have to go far to learn that such plots are home-made. While questions are being raised about the stage-managed activities by India, the Pathankot attack once again shows that the Modi Sarkar has been unable to manipulate tactics to perfection for such operations. It seems the director is incompetent and the producer is a hopeless case.

The experts quoted an Indian analyst wondering on Hindustan Times: “Questions are being raised over India’s response to the attack on the air base in Pathankot and many of them are valid. Just how could extremists breach the high walls of the highly-protected base when concrete intelligence was available hours in advance is only one such question. The first credible report came from within the security establishment; from the superintendent of police whose car was hijacked by the militants. He quickly informed the control room and his seniors that at least five terrorists were on the loose. Close to the Pakistan border, Pathankot is an important area where many defence establishments are based. An entire army division is headquartered there, as is the IAF base that came under attack.

“Yet, despite the high alerts, the terrorists managed to engage the security establishment comprising the air force, army and NSG for around 48 hours. Home Minister Rajnath Singh first tweeting that all five terrorists were killed and subsequently deleting it is evidence of just how botched up the response was.

“That India has learnt few lessons despite repeated attacks is evident from the fact that the Pathankot attackers crossed the border from virtually the same place as those who were responsible for last year’s attack in Gurdaspur. The Border Security Force said it deployed additional troops in this area after the July attack but the hard fact is the Pathankot terrorists came in undetected.”

Experts said that the facts were that nobody had crossed the highly secured border from the Pakistan side, the hijacking of the Indian SP’s car and the alleged use of his phone was a drama and so was the charge that the attackers were linked to an organisation Jaish-e-Muhammad that had been banned by Pakistan several years ago and was unheard of in the present times. They also asked why the SP and his friend were spared by the terrorists giving them an opportunity to alert the senior authorities about the plot. How could the terrorists still penetrate the air base when some 200 commandoes had been airlifted to the base on Friday and the base security was fully alert?

On July 27, three anonymous fanatical gunmen had opened fire on a bus and then stormed a police station in a town called Dinanagar near the Pakistan border. The attack led to the death of three civilians and four policemen and injured 15 others. It was a weird plot that made no sense. Nevertheless, the Indian authorities were quick to blame Pakistan.

Earlier, the Indian Navy had come out with strange charges against Pakistan on several occasions. The Indian media had recently claimed that an Indian fisherman was killed after the Pakistan Navy opened fire on two Indian boats off the Gujarat coast. Before that, in the beginning of the last year, the Indian authorities had sunk a boat off the coast of the western Indian state of Gujarat, claiming that it was coming from Pakistan with explosives on board. A senior official of the Indian Coast Guard had claimed that the four people on board the fishing vessel had ignored repeated warnings and had deliberately set the boat on fire.

The fabricated terrorist plot was exposed when the Indian Coast Guard DIG BK Loshali contradicted the government’s version of events in connection with the interception of the boat and said the Indian Navy had itself blown up the boat, which had not been exploded by the alleged suicide attackers. He then faced a court martial for revealing the truth.