Pathankot operations a national embarrassment, who will take the responsibility?

New Delhi: The Pathankot terror attack is a huge national embarrassment. There can be no arguments over it. It has exposed the inefficiency and incompetence of our intelligence agencies, Punjab Police and the lack of coordination among the various agencies involved in taking on the terrorists and flushing them out.

In a shocking incident, a Superintendent of Police rank officer was easily abducted along with his official vehicle, his friend taken as a hostage, a driver found dead in his Innova vehicle, but the police and the central intelligence agencies failed to act swiftly. They lost precious 14 hours in trying to analyse and plan the search operations.

All this happened near one of the most heavily guarded international borders in the world. Not in a far away place not used to terror attacks.

Yet, the response was extremely poor and embarrassing.

The Pakistan backed Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorists easily gained access into a vital Indian Air Force Station at Pathankot. They managed to cause the intended damage and instill fear across India.

The inefficient handling of the operation cost us the lives of seven soldiers and also damaged the reputation of our elite security forces.

After Saturday's operations, the Centre even declared that the entire operation was over and all the terrorists have been killed. On Sunday, the firing once again began causing fear and embarrassment at the same time. Two terrorists actually stayed inside the IAF Station undetected the entire Saturday night.

What a dreaded news! What a national embarrassment!!

After the SP reported that his vehicle was hijacked by suspected terrorists, the police and other agencies should have heightened security across all vital installations near the border. If they had done that, they could have stopped the terrorists outside or at least at the gates of the Pathankot IAF Station. It clearly shows that despite tall claims of "high alert" nothing was actually done on the ground and authorities were actually groping in the dark.

Any well trained and professional military force and the police would definitely have stopped these terrorists at the gate.

Local media reports suggest that the Punjab Police and other security agencies initially refused to take the words of the abducted SP seriously. They wasted a lot of precious time. Even the murder of a taxi driver did not force them to launch a massive manhunt.

These incidents were treated like ordinary crimes and not like a possible terror attack.

Where were the terrorists hiding between the night of January 1 and January 2? What were they doing? We are yet to get the answer to these questions.

It exposes the lapse on part of Punjab Police too. Like most other states, Punjab Police is also highly politicised and morale is also not high.

Sukhbir Singh Badal, the Deputy Chief Minister of Punjab, is not ready to take the blame. He said "Punjab Police is the last line of defence. The primary responsibility is with the Border Security Force. Our police immediately informed the Centre. We are not at fault. This is not the time for blame game."

The Centre claims that even after it dispatched the elite National Security Guards to Pathankot, the Punjab Police failed to locate the terrorists.

Just six months before the incident, the Punjab had witnessed a similar incident at Gurdaspur. The state police were able to kill all the terrorists, though they lost some brave officers in the fight.

What has happenned in Pathankot clearly shows that no lessons have been learnt from the past.

Even the clearance operations on Sunday was not as per the standard operating procedures of the Army. An officer Lieutenant Colonel Niranjan of the elite NSG Bomb Disposal Squad died in an explosion when he searched the body of a slain terrorist. Worse, two more terrorists were holed up inside the vast campus even as he was clearing the area.

The security agencies must explain what went wrong to the nation. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar must take stock of the situation and order strict action against erring officers.

After watching the botched up Pathankot security operations, the masters of the terrorists in Pakistan must be smiling. This is exactly what they wanted.

Pathankot incident should be treated like a national embarrassment. There is nothing to claim that India successfully "averted" a major disaster, something like the 26/11 incident of Mumbai.

Will the National Security Advisor Ajit Doval care to explain? A good 24 hour lead was wasted and the terrorists had easy access to a top IAF base. According to media reports Modi and Parrikar, who are touring Karnataka have discussed the gravity of the situation and are likely to come out with an explanation.

Hope, it will be the last such embarrassment.