Guwahati/Shillong, Feb. 24: Angry over the administration’s failure to prevent the audacious mortar attack on the Indian Air Force base at Borjhar, defence minister George Fernandes has sought a detailed report on the incident and said that Dispur had some explaining to do about lapses in security.
Fernandes made the statement in Shillong even as Assam police rounded up 25 people for interrogation and recovered a mortar left behind by the militants involved in the attack last night.
The defence minister, who was in Meghalaya to boost the National Democratic Alliance’s electoral campaign, said he would personally assess the situation in Guwahati. “If it is necessary, I will seek an explanation from the Assam government about security in and around defence installations,” he said.
A source in the Eastern Air Command, Shillong, said a report on the incident last night had already been prepared and would be submitted to the defence ministry soon. He said the report blames the Assam government and the police for loopholes in the security net.
Though the Eastern Air Command has yet to make an official statement, defence ministry sources said an inquiry would surely be ordered. The air force has already tightened security at Borjhar and asked officials at Tezpur and the Mohanbari air base in Dibrugarh to do likewise.
Inspector general of police (law and order) S.B. Kakoti told The Telegraph in Guwahati that the police had found the spot from where the militants fired the 60mm mortar. “The outcome of the attack could have been devastating as the airbase and the Guwahati airport are located in the same area. With the manpower at our disposal, we have intensified patrolling and launched an area-dominance exercise,” he added.
Senior officials are supervising the combing operation at Borjhar and the adjoining areas of Kamrup district. Nineteen people, mostly youths, have been rounded up from Azara and six from Palashbari for interrogation. Trailokya Borah, officer-in-charge of Azara police station, said the mortar pierced the tin roof and landed on the verandah of the airmen’s mess. Apart from the tin roof, the walls of the mess were damaged in the attack.
Borjhar is under Azara police station, but the spot from where the militants fired the mortar is under the jurisdiction of the Palashbari police station. The rebels fired the mortar from a jungle near Gadhebari village. However, they could not fire a second mortar though they had possibly planned to do so. The mortar left behind by the militants has been sent for ballistic tests.
The mortar attack by the suspected Ulfa militants was the first on an IAF base since they began their guerrilla campaign and the third overall since October 27. The criminal investigation department (CID) said reports of the earlier attacks had been submitted within a month of the incidents.
“We cannot reveal the findings as it would be tantamount to disclosing classified information,” a senior CID official said.
Director-general of police H.K. Deka had recently said that “security dimensions” of the capital city changed following the twin mortar attacks in Guwahati on the night of Christmas.
Borjhar is one of the main centres of the Eastern Air Command. Several aircraft, mostly AN-32s and helicopters, were in the hangars at the base when the airmen’s mess was hit by a mortar. Fifteen airmen were having dinner at the mess when the incident took place.
While security at the IAF base was tightened, it was business as usual at the Gopinath Bordoloi International Airport in the same area. However, officials said security at the airport had been intensified, too. “We are on maximum alert,” Srikrishnan, executive director of the Airports Authority of India (AAI), Guwahati, said.