Midway during a SriLankan Airlines flight from Chennai to Colombo on Saturday morning, Sri Lankan authorities received a security “alert” from India saying a suspect linked to the Pahalgam terror attack could be on board.
After the flight landed at 11.59am, authorities in Colombo gave it a thorough search that involved the country’s police, air force and airport security. But no such suspect was found, local media and SriLankan Airlines, the national carrier, said.
However, the midflight alert from Indian agencies to SriLankan Airlines raises several questions:
- How could a terror suspect have managed to board the plane in Chennai, evading security and immigration?
- How would the suspect have reached Chennai from the Pahalgam forests 3,000km away, where the attackers are said to be hiding as the security forces run a dragnet through the area?
- What alerted the security agencies about the suspect after the plane had taken off, and before it landed an hour and a half later?
There was no immediate comment from Indian security agencies, already battling allegations of a security failure behind the April 22 massacre.
The SriLankan Airlines said: “The search was carried out in coordination with local authorities following an alert from the Chennai Area Control Centre regarding a suspect wanted in India who was believed to be on board.”
It added that after a thorough inspection, the aircraft was cleared for further operations.
While the airline did not specifically link the “suspect” to the Pahalgam killings, Indian sources unofficially confirmed the connection.
Eleven days have passed since the Pahalgam atrocity but the Indian security agencies — who believe there were five terrorists, three of them Pakistanis — have failed totrace them.
Several security experts have blamed the attack on complacency on the part ofthe Indian agencies. They have also questioned thegovernment’s failure to fixaccountability.
“I suspect an intelligence failure. Somebody must answer for the lapses. There is definitely someone responsible for negligence and they must be held accountable for the consequences,” a former army chief, General (Retd) Shankar Roychowdhury, said.
“There must be complacency somewhere. How did so many infiltrators manage to get through? This needs to be investigated.”
Ajay Sahni, a Delhi-based counter-terrorism specialist, said the carnage was the fallout of the Centre’s political objective of proving “normalcy” in Jammu and Kashmir. “This is a policy failure; this is a propaganda failure,” he said.
Pak missile test
India considers Pakistan’s test launch of a ballistic missile on Saturday, amid the escalating bilateral tensions, as a “blatant act of provocation”, a PTI report said quoting unnamed officials in New Delhi.
The Pakistani military test-fired the Abdali surface-to-surface ballistic missile, which has a range of 450km. Sources said Islamabad had informed NewDelhi beforehand about the planned missile test, in keeping with norms.
There has been no official reaction from India. “The launch was aimed at ensuring the operational readiness of troops and validating key technical parameters, including the missile’s advanced navigation system and enhanced manoeuvrability features,” the Pakistan army said in a statement.
Intelligence misfire?
Shortly before the Pahalgam attack, intelligence agencies had flagged the possible targeting of tourists in Kashmir, especially those staying in hotels on Srinagar’s outskirts and on the foothills of the Zabarwan range, PTI has reported, quoting officials.
This prompted a heightened security presence in these areas with the police brass camping in Srinagar to oversee combing operations around Dachigam, Nishat and adjacent areas.
These areas gained attention and the security forces increased patrolling, with last October’s terror attack on a construction site in Gagangir, Sonamarg, still fresh on their minds. The attack site is on the other side of the Zabarwan range, which overlooks Srinagar city.
During a two-week operation, the security forces conducted extensive searches on the outskirts of Srinagar based on the intelligence.But there were no breakthroughs and the operation was called off on April 22, the day terrorists targeted the Pahalgam tourists.