Explosions and firing continued intermittently on Sunday night as security forces killed one of the at least two militants holed up at Pathankot air base on the second day of the attack in which military casualties including a Lieutenant Colonel of the NSG mounted to seven.
Defence sources in Delhi said one militant was killed while another injured in the encounter that was on for nearly 43 hours, a day after four militants were gunned down after they struck yesterday.“The operation is still continuing and engagement with the militants is still going on, Air Commodore JS Dhamoon, Air Officer Commanding, Air Force Station Pathankot told a late evening news conference.
“The operation will continue till the whole of air base is cleared of intruders and any militants,” he said.
Dhamoon said four militatns have been killed and seven security men—one Garud commando, one NSG officer and five personnel of Defence Security Corps (DSC) have been killed in the operation. 17 security personnel were also injured.
Throughout the day, attack helicopters kept flying over the air force station to provide aerial support to the ground troops battling the militants who fired intermittently with the last round of exchanges erupting at around 9.30pm.
According to reports, the holed up militants were ‘discovered’ in the forested area on the backside of the air base from where they are reported to have entered.
Lt Col Niranjan, a member of the NSG’s Bomb Disposal Squad and a Kerala resident, died after he succumbed to injuries which he sustained while he was trying to retrieve a live grenade from the body of a slain militatn at the scene of the attack as part of the combing operations that continued through last night.
Four other security men were also injured in this explosion.
Three Defence Security Corps (DSC) personnel also succumbed to injuries at the hospital here during the intervening night of January 2 and 3. A Garud commando and two members of the DSC were killed in the gunbattle yesterday at the air base, located barely 35 km from the Indo-Pak border.
“We are sure that still there are at least two more militants as firing have come from two different places. But we are not sure whether there are some more. We will come to know the number of militants only after the completion of the operation and body count,” Union
Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi told a press conference in Delhi earlier in the day.
The comments by Mehrishi came a day after Home Minister Rajnath Singh tweeted saying the operation had been completed with the killing of five militants. Singh later deleted his tweet.
During the day, five companies of army along with JCB bulldozers were sent to the area to speed up the operation against the militants.
Former Western Air Command Chief Air Marshal P S Ahulwalia said casualties could have been kept at minimum through “effective coordination” adding the time taken to neutralise the attackers is way “too long”.
