Pathankot attack: After JIT, India's NIA team to visit Pakistan to probe case

Four months after the terror attacks in Pathankot, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) has said that its team may visit Pakistan to probe the attack. “The Pakistan Joint Investigation Team (JIT) welcomed the idea that an NIA would like to visit Pakistan and carry forward the probe,” Sharad Kumar, DG, NIA said. The team was given a detailed presentation on the probe conducted so far and it was taken to the crime scene in Pathankot. It has also been handed over some more documents which included DNA report of the four terrorists killed in the 80-hour gun battle with security forces. The Pakistani team, headed by Additional Inspector General of Police, Counter Terrorism Department, Muhammad Tahir Rai and including ISI’s Lt Col Tanvir Ahmed, began their day by recording the statements of witnesses in the case, NIA sources said. However, the official did not mention any specific date for the visit. The official also said that information about the addresses of the alleged terrorists had been shared with Pakistan and that JIT has assured India of ‘full co-operation.’ The JIT was given access to 16 witnesses including suspended Gurdaspur SP Salwinder Singh, Kumar said. [caption id=“attachment_2707872” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Pathankot attack. File photo. AFP[/caption] This will be the first time that Pakistani intelligence and police officials have travelled to India to investigate a terror attack. All the witnesses were reportedly under the agency’s supervision for the past five days, sources said. Punjab’s superintendent of police has claimed that he, Verma and his cook Gopal were abducted by four or five heavily armed terrorists near Punjab’s Kolia village on 2 January. The terrorists later attacked the Pathankot Indian Air Force base in which seven security personnel and the Pakistani terrorists were killed. The Pakistani team came to India to probe the Pathankot attack which, New Delhi says, was masterminded by Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Maulana Masood Azhar. On Monday and Tuesday, the NIA submitted the evidence to the five-member Pakistani team on the terror attack. According to NIA sources, the evidence shows that the Pathankot operation was planned by elements in Pakistan.

16 witnesses quizzed by Pakistan JIT including Salwinder Singh: NIA #PathankotProbe
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The visiting team includes Inter Services Intelligence official Lt. Colonel Tanvir Ahmed and military intelligence officer Lt. Colonel Irfan Mirza. The Pakistani JIT had asked NIA to hand over swabs of the four terrorists, identified as Nasir Hussain (Punjab province), Abu Bakar (Gujranwala) and Umar Farooq and Abdul Qayum (both from Sindh). However, the Indian anti-terror probe agency handed over to the visitors the DNA report of the terrorists and asked them to match those with their family members, the NIA sources said. Besides recording the statement of the three, the JIT also spoke to the caretaker of a shrine visited by Singh before he was kidnapped, policemen and residents who spotted the vehicle of the police officer after it was abandoned by the attackers. Statements of doctors who conducted the post-mortem on the bodies were also recorded. With inputs from agencies