The attack on the Pathankot air base in the Gurdaspur district of Punjab, barely 30 kms from the Pakistan border, has raised crucial issues about the security of vital defence installations in the border areas and the government’s ability to protect them.
Although the defence authorities have claimed that the attackers – dressed in Army fatigues like the men who had carried out an attack on a police station in Gurdaspur in July last year – were prevented from entering the air base and were confined to the langer area outside it by alert security personnel, who had anticipated an attack, the fact remains that these terrorists remained at large for nearly a day-and-a-half despite the agencies claiming that the phone calls to their handlers were being tracked.