Four gunmen, six troops dead in attack on Indian air base
PATHANKOT, India – The number of troops killed in an attack on an Indian air force base has risen to seven, after four soldiers succumbed to injuries sustained in the hourslong gunbattle near the border with Pakistan, officials said Sunday. Four suspected militants were also killed in the fighting.
Air force spokeswoman Rochelle D’Silva said that combing operations to secure the Pathankot air force base were continuing by late Sunday morning. Officials gave no other details about the situation at the base. Earlier in the day, at least one grenade blast was heard from inside the base, but officials declined to comment.
The attack started a few hours before dawn on Saturday when a group of militants entered the area where the living quarters are located, the Defense Ministry said. The attackers, however, were unable to penetrate the area where fighter helicopters and other military equipment are kept, it said.
By late Saturday morning it appeared that the violence had ended with the killing of the gunmen by Indian forces. But two hours later, more gunfire erupted and an air force helicopter was seen firing at an area of the base, a major installation located about 267 miles north of New Delhi.
The gunbattle – which lasted about 14 hours – came just a week after India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a surprise visit to arch rival Pakistan.
It was the first visit to Pakistan in 12 years by an Indian prime minister and marked a significant thaw in the mostly difficult relations between the nuclear-armed nations.
Police have said they’re investigating whether the gunmen came from the Indian portion of Kashmir, where rebels routinely stage attacks, or from Pakistan.
The death of six Indian troops came despite the fact that there had been intelligence reports about a likely terror attack on military installations in Pathankot.
A Defense Ministry statement Saturday said that based on those intelligence reports the air force had been prepared to thwart any attackers.
Pathankot is on the highway that connects India’s insurgency-wracked Jammu and Kashmir state with the rest of the country. It’s also very close to India’s border with Pakistan. The Himalayan region of Kashmir, where rebels have been fighting since 1989 for independence or merger with Pakistan, is divided between India and Pakistan, but is claimed in its entirety by both.
India accuses Pakistan of arming and training Kashmir’s insurgents, a charge Islamabad denies, and the attack was viewed by many in India as an attempt to unravel recent progress in the country’s relationship with its archrival.