NIA, other agencies slam ‘doublespeak’ on JIT visit
NIA, other agencies slam ‘doublespeak’ on JIT visit
A blame game has started between the security agencies of Pakistan and India days after the Pakistani Joint Investigation Team visited India to collect evidence on the Pathankot terror probe. In the wake of bizarre reports in the Pakistan media quoting JIT sources as alleging that the Pathankot attack was “stagemanaged” by India, security officials here said the Pakistani security establishment’s “doublespeak” stood exposed as they pointed out that some “inimical forces” in Pakistan were trying to derail the investigation.
Government sources in New Delhi described the Pakistani media report as a “total concoction”, noting that “while in India, the JIT took onboard the detailed evidence shared by the NIA”, and that “since the JIT collected evidence in accordance with a Pakistani law that applies to Pakistani citizens committing an offence abroad, the involvement of Pakistanis in the Pathankot attack is self-evident”. Some observers also felt the controversy had also raised serious doubts on the feasibility of holding foreign secretary-level talks between the two countries in the near future.
“The report in a Pakistan pro-government daily only shows that the ISI and Pakistan Army were doing double-speak. India has provided irrefutable evidence to the Pakistan Joint Investigation Team during their visit here (on) the involvement of Pakistan-based terrorists,” an Indian government source said. The report in Pakistan Today quoted an unnamed JIT member saying that the Pathankot attack was nothing but “vicious propaganda” against Pakistan as the Indian authorities did not have any evidence to back their claims.
The National Investigation Agency, which hosted the JIT team and handed over all evidence to it, trashed the Pakistani media reports, making a stunning revelation that the Pakistani JIT had, in fact, refused to see the dead bodies of slain Pakistani terrorists who had attacked the IAF base. Sources in New Delhi noted that the Pakistani JIT had yet to formally get in touch with the NIA after its return home and intimate it of its findings and conclusions regarding the probe.
Rebutting the Pakistani media report, another government source said the evidence provided to the JIT could stand international scrutiny and expressed surprise over media reports that claimed that the NIA had not provided enough evidence to the visiting team.
“The JIT was handed over whatever they asked for, which included certified copies of statements of witnesses, DNA reports of four terrorists, memos of articles seized from them,” the source said. Pakistan had made a request under Section 188 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Pakistan to collect the evidence from the NIA.
The NIA sources said all the evidence pointing towards Pakistan’s involvement in the attack was handed over to the JIT, which included call data records of two phones snatched from suspended Punab superintendent of police Salwinder Singh and his jeweller friend Rajesh Verma, used by the terrorists to call a number in Pakistan. India also shared the conversation recorded between Nasir Hussain, one of the four terrorists who carried out the attack on the airbase during the night of January 1-2 with his mother Khayyam Babber. The NIA has asked for a DNA sample from Nasir’s family.
The agency has also handed over call recordings of the terrorists holed up inside the IAF base with their handlers, including Kashif Jaan, who has since been missing.
The Pakistani JIT had asked the NIA to hand over swabs of four terrorists identified as Nasir Hussain (Punjab province), Abu Bakar (Gujranwala), Umar Farooq and Abdul Qayum (both Sindh). However, the NIA handed over to the visitors the DNA report of terrorists and asked them to match those with their families, sources said.
