Sanjeev Pargal
JAMMU, Mar 25: Authori-ties have decided that Pakistan’s Joint Investigation Team (JIT) will be confined to area of operation against the militants at Pathankot air base and will not be allowed to visit strategic locations, where vital assets of the Indian Air Force (IAF) have been housed.
As India issued visas to five members of Pakistan’s JIT that comprised officers of Military Intelligence, Counter Terrorism Department and Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), sources told the Excelsior that Pakistan officials would be taken to the areas, where the militants had struck and where encounter between militants and security forces had ensued for about three days before six militants were killed in the operation, starting January 2.
“Pakistan team will be taken to Pathankot on March 28, where they will be allowed investigations in the case but they will not be taken to any area, which houses strategic assets of the Air Force etc. They will be taken only around the area of operation and shown the evidence that militants belonged to Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) outfit and had come from Pakistan,” they said.
The JIT will reach New Delhi on March 27 and could travel to Pathankot the next day for investigations.
The JIT comprised senior officials from both the Military Intelligence as well as civil administration and is headed by the Chief of Punjab Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) Additional Inspector General of Police Muhammad Tahir Rai.
Other members of the JIT included Lahore Deputy Director General Intelligence Bureau Mohammad Azim Arshad, Inter-Services Intelli-gence (ISI) Lt Col Tanvir Ahmed, Military Intelligence Lt Col Irfan Mirza and Gujjaranwala CTD Investig-ating Officer Shahid Tanveer.
India earlier today granted visa to all five officers of Pakistan’s JIT, whose names had been proposed by the Pakistan Embassy to the External Affairs Ministry for visiting Pathankot for joint probe.
India had agreed to allow Pakistan’s JIT to visit Pathankot during bilateral meeting between External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and her Pakistani counterpart Sartaj Aziz for investigations into the terror attack as Pakistan had also registered separate First Information Report (FIR) in the case and made some arrests of the JeM activists as India has conveyed to Pakistan that JeM chief Maulana Masood Azhar and his associates were responsible for the attack.
This is for the first time that Pakistan investigating team will be visiting any part of India to probe the terror attack, which had originated from their country. India had enough evidence to suggest that attack was planned and executed from Pakistan and that all six militants killed in the operation were Pakistanis.
Sources said the Indian investigators, who would accompany the Pakistani team would give them detailed briefing on infiltration route taken by the militants from Pakistan, telephonic calls between one of the militants to his mother and handlers in Pakistan, calls made from Pakistan for booking a taxi, kidnapping of the SP and others and finally the attack inside the airbase in which seven security personnel including a Lieutenant Colonel were killed.
The operation has lasted nearly three days.
Sources said the Pakistani JIT was expected to examine the weapons used by the terrorists carrying out the assault on IAF base in Pathankot besides recording the statements of the victims.
India has been pressing Pakistan for action over the brazen assault on the key IAF base on January 2 as there was enough evidence with National Investigating Agency (NIA), which has been investigating the terror attack, that it had been planned in Pakistan and executed by the JeM activists.
The attack led to the postponement of a scheduled meeting between Foreign Secretaries of Pakistan and India in January in Islamabad.
On February 18, Pakistan had lodged an FIR in connection with the Pathankot terror attack without naming JeM chief Masood Azhar, whom India has accused of having masterminded the strike.
The FIR by the Counter-Terrorism Department of Punjab police was lodged on the basis of information provided by National Security Adviser Ajit Doval that the attackers crossed from Pakistan into India and attacked the airbase.
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