The government on Sunday found itself on the back foot on the Pathankot terror attack over the premature announcements of the end of the operations.

Several questions remain unanswered, including as to how Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh made the announcement on Twitter the end of operations and killing of four terrorists on Saturday evening.

He deleted the tweet later after it became known that only four terrorists were killed at that time and the gunbattle between terrorists and security agencies started again on Sunday afternoon the security establishment will also have to investigate how the borders guarded by BSF could not detect infiltration. Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi and Air Force Director General (Operations) Air Marshal Anil Khosla faced tough questions at a press conference on the faux pas as well as lapses. Defending the government, Mehrishi said terrorists’ main aim was to target Air Force assets "stands defeated" as they could not reach the technical area of the air base.

Intelligence agencies had picked intercepts from the phone calls made by terrorists to their handlers in Pakistan where they were directed to target Air Force assets. “They were not able to move forward to the technical area. They were contained in an area where there is a heavy growth of trees,” Mehrishi said.