Jupinderjit Singh,Tribune News Service,Chandigarh, January 3
Superintendent of Police Salwinder Singh, who was “let off” by a group of terrorists who had kidnapped him, remains at the centre of the investigation into the Air Base attack.“I am a victim in the terror incident and I am being wrongly accused of misconduct in my personal life. I am clear and an investigation, if any, will prove it soon,” he told The Tribune.Salwinder also lodged an FIR at the Narot Jaimal Singh police station about his kidnapping last evening.Salwinder said he was not in the detention of any security agency, after his reported questioning all day yesterday.A departmental Sexual Harassment Committee headed by an IG-rank officer had visited Gurdaspur last week after five women constables, posted with the district police, accused him of sexual harassment. A senior official involved in the inquiry said the SP was transferred pending further inquiry and on administrative grounds to PAP, Jalandhar, two days before the terrorists waylaid him.It is ironical that the SPis a prime witness as well as a suspect, considering the coincidence that he was travelling on the route taken by the terrorists in the wee hours.While being questioned on his kidnapping claims, investigators are also probing his personal conduct.Pathankot SSP RK Bakshi, however, said that Salwinder was a complainant and not a suspect, “He is neither an accused nor a suspect. The other complaints against him are unrelated with the Pathankot police or with the terror attack.”
Intelligence alert came on Dec 26
Mohit Khanna,Tribune News Service,Ludhiana, January 3
“Fifteen terrorists have sneaked into India to carry out some major attack on New Year.” This message was sent to all police districts by DGP (Intelligence) Anil Kumar Sharma on December 26, six days before a group of terrorists waylaid a Punjab Police SP.If the Intelligence input was indeed credible, the terrorists remained in the area for a long time and went untraced despite the alert.Despite this alert, which senior officials term a general alert, the terrorists were able to kidnap a police officer and take away his blue beacon SUV, besides another Innova, and attack the Air Force station.Sources said IG (Counter Intelligence) Pramod Ban had spoken to the SSPs of various districts, especially border districts, to work on the inputs.“We get such general alerts. The information was not specific about Punjab. Still, we took it seriously. We intensified night patrolling, set up more ‘nakas’ and increased general vigil. More force was alerted when the SP incident came to light,” an officer said.
Pathankot, a tactically important air base
Vijay Mohan,Tribune News Service,Chandigarh, January 3
Located on the northern tip of Punjab just about 40 km from the India-Pakistan international border and close to the Punjab-Jammu and Kashmir-Himachal Pradesh inter-state boundaries, the Pathankot Air Force Station is a tactically important base.Part of the Western Air Command, it is home to No. 18 Wing, currently being commanded by Air Commodore JS Dhamoon.The 108 Squadron “Hawkeyes” that fly the MiG-21 fighters and the 125 Helicopter Unit “Gladiators” that operate the Mi-35 helicopter gunships in support of the Army are based here, besides a Pechora air defence missile squadron and other auxiliary outfits.The air base is spread over 75 acres and in November 2006, a civil enclave attached to it for commercial flights was inaugurated in November 2006 by Praful Patel, the then minister for civil aviation. However, no civilian domestic flights operate from this airport.The air base saw action during the Indo-Pak wars. It was the target of Pakistani special forces during the 1965 War though no real damage was done. An air strike was launched on it by Pakistan in 1971 in which part of the runway was damaged.It has also seen mobilisation during other operations such as Safed Sagar during the 1999 Kargil conflict and Parakram in 2002 after the terrorist attack on Parliament in December 2001 as well as training exercises.