Pathankot: Why did terrorists delay launch of attack

New Delhi, Jan 9: There was a delay by the terrorists in the launching the operation at the Pathankot air force station, investigations have found.

OneIndia had reported yesterday (How terrorists entered the Pathankot air force station) that two terrorists had entered the air force station on January 1 2016 itself. They however launched the attack on January 2 at 3.30 PM after the remaining four terrorists reached the air base.

There are questions that are being raised over the delay in launching the attacks and investigators are pondering over this point too.

Why did the terrorists wait for so long?

Although there is no clarity on why the two terrorists waited this long to launch the attack, investigators suspect that there could have been some communication gap between them. Going by the investigations it becomes clear that two terrorists who entered the base on January 1 itself had waited for nearly 24 hours before launching the attack.

The other point that the investigators are looking into is whether there were more than 6 terrorists. A search operation had been launched to find two more terrorists in Punjab and investigators suspect that they could have also infiltrated to be part of the Pathankot strike.

There are plenty of dots to be joined before investigators can come to a final conclusion. As per the preliminary investigations, the car of the Gurdaspur SP alleged to have been used by the terrorists was found abandoned on January 1 at 3 AM.

If the car was abandoned on January 1 itself, the question that needs to be asked is where the four terrorists after this and why did they take so long to reach the base?

The thermal imagers at the air force station picked up the movement of four terrorists on January 2. However here there are some missing links as there is still no clarity on how they entered the base.

Investigations show that two terrorists were hiding well in advance near the air force station. However it was almost after 24 hours that the attack began when they began firing at 3.30 AM on January 2.

NIA officials say that they are probing this aspect too. It is quite certain that two terrorists were present well in advance. However there is still some clarity required on why they waited for so long and what delayed the arrival of the four other terrorists, NIA officials point out.

OneIndia News