Punjab Border range on alert after sensitive call intercepted

Pathankot : An alert was sounded by security forces, including the army, after the Pathankot police intercepted a “sensitive” phone conversation made by using a Pakistani SIM from inside the Indian territory. Pathankot SSP Rakesh Kaushal confirmed that the border area was put on alert following a “technical intercept” (phone conversation). The exchange, in Urdu, lasted minutes and what alerted the cops was the sentence, “Hum aa rahe hain Pathankot ki taraf. Tum apni taraf se taiyari kar lo.”
This put the cops of three police districts–Pathankot, Gurdaspur and Batala–into action. Gurdaspur SSP Jasdeep Singh was sounded. The army, too, started checking vehicles on the Pathankot-Jammu highway. The Gurdaspur police manned the entire stretch of the highway between Dinanagar and Batala following which all vehicles plying on the Amritsar-Jammu route were checked. The exercise that began on Friday evening continued till Saturday morning before the security agencies gave the ‘all clear’.
Police have been on the alert since four militants had laid siege to the Pathankot Air Force station on January 2. IG (Border) Naresh Arora said it was a routine exercise and not much should be read into it. “These things are common in the border range. We cannot take risks, hence such exercises,” he said.
However, senior officers differ with the IG’s views. “The involvement of the army, and that too in a big way, shows there is more than meets the eye. The Pathankot-Jammu highway was put under the scanner for around 12 hours. The army had stationed its personnel much before we reached there,” said an officer involved in checking of vehicles.