Probe says Pathankot airbase attack enabled by insider job

Investigations into the Pathankot airbase attack are strengthening the view that the Pakistani-based terrorist attack was enabled by an insider job. These suspicions are based on facts. First, the searchlights at the particular spot where the terrorists entered the airbase were turned up, second the Y-angled fencing on top of the 11-ft high wall were cut. An employee of the Military Engineering Services (MES), who is responsible for the maintenance at the airbase, has been detained in this connection. The employee, an Army man himself, was stated to have been recently transferred from Udhampur in Jammu and Kashmir to Pathankot airbase. Reporting the lacuna, a leading English daily said the employee also may have been compromised by ISI's Call Centre which is employing sweet-talking girls to lure those serving on India's borders into phoney honey traps through an internet phone. In the event, the terrorists were enabled to scale the 11-feet-high boundary wall of the airbase in darkness as the floodlights faced up and storm the airbase. The floodlights elsewhere in the airbase were intact and also the razor sharp fencing. All this points to an insider job to enable the terrorist attack, the authorities summed up. There are reports that the commander of the Armed Battalion of the Punjab police, Salwinder Singh, was similarly compromised. Salwinder Singh gave his official car to the terrorists helping them reach and storm the airbase in time at 3.30 a.m. on Saturday last.