NIA finds Samba & Kathua attacks just like Pathankot

Widening the ambit of the NIA probe into the Pathankot terror siege, the investigation agency fanned out across the Samba and Kathua areas of the Jammu region on Tuesday after it found similarities in the attacks that took place last year on an Army camp in Samba and Rajbagh police station in Kathua.

Punjab SP Salwainder Singh, who was questioned by the NIA on Tuesday for the second time, is learnt to have been changing his statements often. The NIA will now subject Mr Singh to joint questioning with his cook-cum-helper Madan Gopal and Somraj, caretaker of the Panj Peer Dargah in Punjab, which Mr Singh had claimed to have visited before being kidnapped by the terrorists who had attacked the Pathankot airbase hours later. Somraj has been issued summons to appear before the NIA.

Mr Singh had claimed to the Punjab police that he had been blindfolded by the terrorists who spoke in Hindi, Urdu and Kashmiri. Sources said Mr Singh may be given a clean chit and made a witness in the case if his statements are corroborated by the caretaker of the shrine and his helper. With no clear proof of insider involvement in the cross-border terror attack emerging yet, the NIA teams on Tuesday visited the Army camp in Samba on the Jammu-Pathankot highway where two terrorists had opened fire on March 21 last year. Both the militants were shot dead by the security forces, while three people, including a major, were injured in the gunbattle. Another team also visited Kathua, where Rajbagh police station was attacked by a group of militants a day earlier. Three security personnel, two militants and two civilians were killed in the exchange of fire there.

Sources said the NIA had found “glaring” similarities in the modus operandi of the terrorists who attacked the installations in Kathua and Samba and those who mounted the brazen assault on the Pathankot airbase on January 1-2 this year.

The NIA has also asked mobile service providers to give details of calls made using three particular towers which give coverage to the IAF base in Pathankot, after an initial probe indicated the terrorists had entered the restricted area in the morning of January 1, a source said. They said Defence Security Corps officials and others who handle entry and exit points at the base were being questioned to ascertain possible lapses that allowed the terrorists to enter the restricted zone without being noticed.