Pathankot attack: 'Two terrorists may have been insiders'

Senior officials from the National Investigation Agency told The Economic Times there is a possibility that two of the four terrorists killed during the Pathankot attacks could have been insiders. Reports due at the end of the week, including call logs from phones retrieved at the site, and an investigation into personnel at the base, will help tracking down whom the insiders could have been.

NIA officials said the fact that only four AK-47s were recovered from the site and that only four terrorists crossed into Punjab supports this idea. 

The report published by The Economic Times also says, that the investigative agency is also looking at all personnel present (3,500 people, including family members of those employed) at the airbase, as well as locals to establish the identity of the two insiders.

The agency also established that the four militants entered the airbase on the morning of January 1 by terrorists entered the base by scaling its 11-foot wall and snipping concertina wires.

Reportedly, the terrorists also spent up to 24 hours resting inside a disused Military Engineer Services shed as they prepared to launch their attack.

Terrorists had struck at the Indian Air Force base on the intervening night of January 1 and 2, in which seven security personnel were killed in the encounter that lasted for three days.