A Court of Inquiry has been ordered against two senior BSF officers posted in Punjab sector to find out possible lapses along the border that allowed the terrorists to sneak into the country from Pakistan to carry out the terror attack at Pathankot IAF base.
Gurdaspur Deputy Inspector General (DIG) N K Tiwari and Commandant of the 132nd battalion deployed in the area S S Dabas have been transferred from the area "pending inquiry", officials said.
They said the headquarters of the border guarding force here has instituted a Court of Inquiry (CoI) into the possible occurrence of breach along the International Border (IB) from this area in the recent past, following which a fact-finding team is also scouring the frontier locations for evidence.
The two officers and their men were tasked with securing the IB in Punjab area.
"The officers have been replaced by DIG A Srinivasan and Commandant I P Bhatia.
"The Court of Inquiry will ascertain the role of the commanders in the backdrop of Pathankot attack and few others in the Jammu area where BSF mans the IB.
"While the force has found no evidence to say that the IB has been breached or infiltrated, the NIA investigation into these cases will also throw more light apart from the CoI," they said.
The role of the Border Security Force has come under scrutiny after intelligence reports suggested that terrorists who perpetrated the January 2 attack on the Indian Air Force base in Pathankot had possibly crossed over from Bamiyal area in the district which has patches of riverine and unfenced border areas.
While senior officials led by BSF Director General D K Pathak have toured the forward areas after the attack , Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar has said that the force has already been asked to give details of areas from where terrorists could have entered.
