[10][11] The gun battle and the subsequent combing operation lasted about 17 hours on 2 January, resulting in five attackers and three security personnel dead.
[27][28][29] On the night of 31 December 2015, at 9 pm, four men who had crossed the international border from Pakistan and reached the Indian side, stopped a taxi driver, Ikagar Singh, on the road.
[30] The armed men then proceeded to hijack a multi-utility vehicle belonging to Salwinder Singh, a superintendent of the Punjab Police, in Dinanagar.
[37] On the morning of 1 January 2016 at around 03:30 IST, at least six heavily armed people dressed in Indian Army uniforms breached the high-security perimeter[38] of the airbase in Pathankot.
It is speculated that one of the attackers had climbed up one of the eucalyptus trees growing alongside the fence: bent it over with his weight to land on the wall.
The floodlights in that stretch of the wall were apparently not working that night, which facilitated the transfer of six attackers, with some 50 kilograms (110 pounds) of ammunition, 30 kg (70 lb) of grenades, and assault weapons.
[40] Reports have arisen of someone inside the base assisting the infiltration by changing the angle of floodlights near the wall where the attacker entered.
[10] Three additional security personnel who were admitted to a hospital with severe injuries after an IED blast during combing operations died on the night of 2 January 2016.
[46] Among those killed on 2 January was Commonwealth shooting medalist Subedar Fateh Singh of the Dogra Regiment who was then with the Defence Security Corps.
[48] According to Indian intelligence officers, the attackers may have entered India on 31 December 2015 along the banks of the Beas River which cuts across the Pakistani border.
[55] Speculative reports by Times of India claimed that the people who carried out the attack in Pathankot had to be in regular touch with their handlers.
However, the dates could not confirm linkage with the live incident[56] The attackers called a number at 21:12 on 31 December from the phone of taxi driver Ikaagar Singh.
"On this number, in fact, the terrorist is heard telling the attacker to kill the taxi driver," an official told the Times of India.
[60] It was a way to draw back the defected groups of JeM who had turned against the Pakistani government after President Musharraf's U-turn in 2001 and direct them against India.
Delhi Police Special Cell received information that two people from a designated terrorist group based in Kashmir known as Jaish-e-Mohammed had entered the city.
In another instance at the Mumbai airport, a Turkish Airlines plane was ordered to return from the runway to the parking area after an unclaimed mobile phone was found on a seat.
[71][72] Mumbai, the financial capital of the country, and Hindon Air Force Station, located on the outskirts of Delhi, were also put on high alert.
[75] A five-member Pakistani investigation team was allowed to visit the air base on 28 March,[77] and remained for three days to collect evidence and conduct interviews with witnesses and survivors.
[79] On 3 May, the Standing Committee of the Ministry of Home Affairs, which had sent a delegation to Pathankot to investigate the attack, lambasted the central government for its poor state of preparedness and lack of effective communications between its intelligence agencies.
[81] Prime Minister Narendra Modi also condemned the attack, saying, "Today, enemies of humanity who can't see India progress tried to strike at our strategic area, a prominent airbase at Pathankot.
Special assistant to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Irfan Siddiqui, said, "India should understand that Pakistan itself had been one of the greatest victims of terrorist attacks on its soil."
"The intelligence agencies have picked up some suspects from Bahawalpur on the leads provided by India in Pathankot airbase attack and shifted them to undisclosed location for interrogation," the news channel reported.