Ball in Pakistan court on foreign secretary talks: Government

Islamabad given evidence on 4 handlers behind attack, including JeM chief Azhar

Adopting a tough stand, India on Thursday linked the foreign secretary-level talks with Pakistan’s “prompt and decisive response” on the “actionable intelligence inputs” that have been provided to it on the terror attack at the Pathankot airbase.

New Delhi’s hardline approach came as highly-placed sources said Indian agencies had shared evidence with Pakistan in the form of details of the call intercepts of the four “handlers” of the Pathankot attack based in that country, who have been identified as Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) head Maulana Masood Azhar, Asfaq Ahmed, Hafiz Abdul Shakur and Kashim Jan.

In another key development on the Pathankot attack, after facing Opposition fire on terror making a comeback under the BJP-led government, a decision has been taken at the highest level to pump in more technology like state-of-the-art surveillance equipment and thermal imagery to enable intercepts of suspicious movements on difficult border terrains. The BSF has in a report identified more than two dozen vulnerable stretches along the international border and sought more surveillance equipment to allow its men to secure the border more effectively.

On Thursday, BSF director-general D.K. Pathak met Union home secretary Rajiv Mehrishi to discuss the finalised draft standard operating procedures for use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), which includes classification of areas based on “risk profile” and identifying a controling and monitoring agency for the use of UAVs. Plans are afoot by the Narendra Modi government to procure more UAVs and remotely-piloted aerial vehicles like drones to boost the country’s internal security set-up.

On the evidence about the Pathankot attack shared with Pakistan, highly-placed sources said the government had got its first evidence to nail Pakistan’s complicity in the Pathankot terror siege in the form of real-time intercepted calls by Indian intelligence agencies, who identified the mastermind as Azhar, along with the three others, as the ones controlling the terrorists during the terror attack.

Sharing details of this evidence with Islamabad, New Delhi has put a condition asking Islamabad for swift and prompt action against the four handlers before the foreign secretary-level talks can be held.

Sources said a dossier of the phone intercepts has been shared by national security adviser Ajit Doval, who spoke to Pakistan’s NSA Lt. Gen. Naseer Khan Janjua (Retd), to convey New Delhi’s stand.

Clearly, JeM chief Masood Azhar, whose release from an Indian jail in exchange for passengers of the Indian Airlines aircraft hijacked to Kandahar in December 1999, has come back to haunt the Narendra Modi government.

Making it clear that the “ball is now in Pakistan’s court”, external affairs ministry spokesman Vikas Swarup refused to say if the FS-level talks, that were due to be held in Islamabad on January 15, will happen or not. Despite being bombarded with questions on the fate of the talks between New Delhi and Islamabad, Mr Swarup remained non-committal, saying India had sought “actionable response” from Pakistan, and that was awaited.

Asked if there was any timeframe within which Pakistan should take action, he said: “We are not imposing any deadline. At the same time, prompt means prompt and we will go by the commonsense interpretation of that word.” He rejected the view that this demand would derail the talks.

On being persistently questioned on the “promptness” of Pakistan’s response to the “actionable intelligence inputs” provided by New Delhi, considering that only a week was left for the FS-level talks to be held, Mr Swarup said that getting into the definition of “prompt” was not the issue, the priority was to get to the bottom of the attack. “January 15 is a week away, let’s see what happens in between,” he said.

Dismissing questions that the government’s Pakistan policy was not consistent, the MEA spokesman said that India’s Pakistan policy was “clear and consistent” and it would like to have friendly relations with all neighbouring countries, including Pakistan, but will not tolerate cross-border terrorist attacks. India would like Pakistan to take action against all those responsible for the attacks on the Pathakot airbase, the MEA spokesman added.

Asked if the NSAs of two countries will meet ahead of the FS talks, Mr Swarup said there has been no discussion with Pakistan on this.

Top Indian officials said: “It has been many years that Masood has had a free run in Pakistan. The time has come for Islamabad to act against the JeM chief.”

Besides details of conversations in possession of Indian intelligence agencies which have been shared with Pakistan, it was also revealed that the Pathankot airbase terror plot was hatched at Markaz in Pakistan.

Raising hackles within the Indian security establishment, there are also regular intelligence inputs — before and after the recent Pathankot attack — of terrorists moving along the international border and launch pads of terrorists being activated to carry out more strikes.