New Delhi, (The Telegraph): Suspected cross-border militants today attacked a strategic Indian Air Force station near the Pakistan border, threatening to destroy a whole wing of fighter planes and helicopter gunships. But the number of casualties and the account of events remained hazy.

Government sources said four terrorists and three Indian soldiers died in the dawn-to-dusk standoff in the Punjab town of Pathankot, which came eight days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi's surprise Christmas stopover in Lahore on counterpart Nawaz Sharif's birthday.

Union home minister Rajnath Singh said five attackers had been killed but later deleted the tweet, while the air force counted four dead militants. The death toll of soldiers ranged from three (official) to 10 (unofficial).

One of those slain was Subedar Major Fateh Singh (retired), a gold medallist in rifle shooting at the 1995 Commonwealth Shooting Championship. He was with the Defence Security Corps, an outfit of mostly retired soldiers, tasked to guard installations. (See Sport)

Veteran diplomats expressed little surprise at the attack, saying they had been expecting such a move from "sections that stand to lose" because of the resumption of the peace process.

The foreign ministry suggested the January 15-16 foreign secretary talks scheduled in Islamabad were still on. Pakistan condemned the attack and denied any role.

During the day, as helicopter gunships circled the battle zone, 35km from the border, defence minister Manohar Parrikar cut short a trip to home state Goa and summoned the service chiefs and national security adviser Ajit Doval to a meeting in New Delhi.

Doval was said to be personally overseeing the operations from the capital. The Western Air Command chief, Air Marshal S.B. Deo, who is based in Delhi, was in Pathankot.

Government sources said the militants had sneaked in from Pakistan on Thursday night. By late Friday evening, the sources said, they had been spotted aerially and the security establishment had surmised their target was the Pathankot airbase, located on the "chicken's neck" connecting Jammu and Kashmir with the rest of the country.

Timely intelligence and action, the government said, prevented large-scale damage. Troops, including a contingent of the National Security Guard from Manesar near Delhi, were flown to Pathankot last evening. The army and air force had their own special forces on the ground.

Officials suggested the militants wanted to destroy the 18 Wing of the air force, which has squadrons of MiG 21 Bis fighter planes and a squadron of Mil Mi 25/35 helicopter gunships, and is a rear area for aircraft that supply to troops in Siachen.

Had the militants been successful, it would have been a big military setback.

Home ministry sources said there were telltale signs that the militants were from the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed.

Before the airbase raid, the terrorists had apparently kidnapped a Punjab superintendent of police, Salwinder Singh, near Gurdaspur in the small hours on Friday and murdered a jeweller accompanying him in his car.

A source said Salwinder had told his superiors, after the militants freed him, that the attackers had overpowered him and friend Rajesh Verma, the jeweller, and driven away with their SUV after knifing Verma. The vehicle was found at Tajpur village, 2km from the Pathankot airbase.

Army sources said the militants used the police officer's mobile phone to make calls to numbers in Bahawalpur, Pakistan. The murder and carjacking, whose details remain sketchy, took place close to 24 hours before air force helicopters spotted the militants.

"Intelligence inputs had been available of a likely attempt by terrorists to infiltrate into the military installation in Pathankot area. In response, preparatory actions had been taken by the Indian Air Force to thwart any such attempt," a defence ministry statement said.

"Due to the effective preparation and coordinated efforts by all the security agencies a group of terrorists were detected by the aerial surveillance platforms as soon as they entered the air force station at Pathankot. The infiltrators were immediately engaged and contained within a limited area, thus preventing them from entering the technical zone where high value assets are parked."

But unanswered questions remained, such as:

• Why did the militants kidnap the police officer if only to release him?

• Why did they use his mobile phone and leave traceable numbers?

• Despite the carjack, kidnapping and murder in the early hours of Friday, how could the attackers remain undetected till they tried to enter the airbase?

• Why the disparities in the official tolls of the militants killed if there was indeed a joint operation by security forces?

"Proud of our jawans," Modi tweeted from Karnataka after the standoff ended in the evening. "Enemies of humanity who can't see India progress, such elements attacked in Pathankot but our security forces did not let them succeed."

A PTI report said the militants had crossed the border from a spot near Shakargarh in Pakistan and Bamiyal village in Pathankot. The area offers a thick cover of elephant grass and a known drug-smuggling route along a tributary of the Beas.

The report added that Salwinder was facing charges of breach of discipline.

Today's attack packs several coincidences from the recent past. In July last year, militants were reported to have infiltrated the Punjab border, sprayed a bus with bullets and attacked a police station in Gurdaspur. Seven persons were killed.

Last month, as Modi toured Afghanistan and Pakistan, India had delivered a helicopter gunship to Kabul. India's air force operates two helicopter gunship squadrons one based in Suratgarh, Rajasthan, and the other in Pathankot.

Modi is scheduled to lay the foundation stone for a helicopter-making facility of the defence public sector Hindustan Aeronautics at Tumkur near Bangalore tomorrow.

Photo credit: The Telegraph