Pathankot on red alert; search continues for armed men

Chandigarh, Sep 28 : Security agencies carried out a night-long search operation in Pathankot district of Punjab to look for some armed men seen by local residents, police said on Wednesday.

"We carried out search operation around Chakki river bank and nearby forest area. However, nothing has been found so far. The search operation was started on Tuesday and carried on through the night," Pathankot district police chief Rakesh Kaushal said.

An extensive search operation began in Pathankot on Tuesday following reports that some local residents had spotted four armed "suspicious men".

The area searched, lying close to the Punjab-Himachal Pradesh-Jammu and Kashmir border, is around 250 km from here.

However, no arrests were made, police officials said.

Search operations have been carried out by security forces in Pathankot and Gurdaspur districts virtually every month after the January 2 attack this year.

Terrorists, suspected to be from Pakistan, had attacked the frontier Indian Air Force (IAF) base in Pathankot on January 2, leaving seven security personnel dead.

The attack was preceded by a terror assault by Pakistani terrorists in Dinanagar town of neighbouring Gurdaspur district on July 27 last year.