As security forces struggle to eliminate the terrorists who stormed and entered the IAF’s Pathankot base, unsavoury details are emerging that point towards suspected connivance between the Gurdaspur Superintendent of Police, and the saboteurs whose objective was to cause maximum damage to the air force’s assets.

Disturbing questions, which could be potentially embarrassing for the Punjab Police and the Intelligence Bureau, are being asked in sensitive quarters of the state and central governments over SP (Headquarter) Salwinder Singh’s suspicious activities on the intervening night of Thursday and Friday. During that period, he was, by his own admission, abducted by the terrorists, who subsequently released him without causing any harm.

The question that officers in the intelligence agencies are grappling with, but are reluctant to get to the bottom of at this point in time, is whether Salwinder Singh played a role in the pernicious drug trade that has assumed alarming proportions in a state which has a long international border with Pakistan.