Pathankot air base sanitised, search operation in Gurdaspur ends

Pathankot: After a massive combing operation spanning over three days, security forces today declared that the Air Force station in Pathankot in Punjab was fully sanitised, seven days after six terrorists struck the sprawling facility.

In adjoining Gurdaspur, security forces called off their three-day-long extensive search operation as they found no suspected terrorist as claimed by locals who had reported the sighting of two men in military fatigues moving in suspicious manner.

"The combing operation at the Air Force station is over," a senior Air Force official said, adding the entire area has been sanitised. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to visit the Air Force base on Saturday.

The sanitisation operation had been going on for the last three days ever since the six terrorists were gunned down.

The operation to ensure that no terrorist was hiding was carried out jointly by Army, NSG and IAF's Garud commandos. The official said the Indian Air Force was "sharing and supporting" the National Investigation Agency or NIA with the inputs.

The NIA has investigated the personnel of Defence Services Corps (DSC) in connection with the terror attack. In Gurdaspur, a senior police officer Pardeep Malik said, "The search operation is over. Nothing has been found suspicious."

Mr Malik, who supervised the search operation on the third day, said search operations were conducted in 15 km radius of the Tibri cantonment area.

Extensive search operations were carried out jointly by Punjab police, army and the Border Security Force or BSF after some locals claimed to have seen two men in Army fatigues moving suspiciously on Wednesday in Pandher village near the Tibri cantonment.

Malik said the sugarcane field, where security officials today concentrated their search operations, was also thoroughly checked and nothing suspicious was found.

After the operation was over, the traffic on Gurdaspur-Mukerian road which remained closed for three days was opened.

Seven military men were martyred and 20 injured in the Pathankot attack that started on early Saturday morning before the base was secured nearly 80 hours later.