A day ahead of the Pakistan Joint Investigation Team’s (JIT) visit to India to collect evidence related to the Pathankot terror attack, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Friday summoned three
A day ahead of the Pakistan Joint Investigation Team’s (JIT) visit to India to collect evidence related to the Pathankot terror attack, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Friday summoned three persons, including SP of Punjab Police Salvinder Singh for questioning in connection with the case.
The NIA, which is probing the terror case, is keen to strengthen its charge that the attack was sponsored from across the border and planned and executed by Pakistani terror operatives. The NIA is still awaiting a Letters Rogatory from the Pakistan side so that the evidence it has gathered so far could be shared with them legally.
NIA officials said that Salvinder Singh, his jeweller friend Rajesh Verma and cook Madan Gopal have been summoned for a routine questioning as the agency is preparing to receive a five-member Special Investigation Team (SIT) from Pakistan on March 27.
This is a routine investigation as some formalities have to be completed before a charge sheet is filed in the case, the officials said.
NIA has already conducted a lie-detector test on all the three and given them a clean chit.
All the three were alleg-edly kidnapped on the intervening night of December 31 and January 1 allegedly by Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorists, who had launched an audacious attack on the Pathankot IAF base on January 1 morning. Wh-ile Verma was left on the road with a slit throat, Gopal and Singh, currently posted as Assistant Commandant of 75th battalion of Punjab Armed Police, were released so-me distance away before the terrorists left for the air base.
The terrorists were eng-aged in an 80-hour gunbattle with the security forces at the IAF base from the intervening ni-ght of January 1 and 2. Seven security personnel were killed, while four bodies of terrorists belon-ging to Jaish-e-Moham-med were recovered.
Confusion relating to other two bodies still remains with NIA now contemplating to send samples afresh to second CFSL laboratory.
Recently, NIA had also released photographs of the four terrorists killed during the operation with description of their height. The anti-terror probe agency has said one of the terrorists did not have toes in both the feet.
The pictures have been circulated and the public asked to share information about them. Anybody giving “relevant and correct” information would be rewarded up to Rs one lakh, NIA has said.Meanwhile, India had already sent a Letters Rogatory to Pakistan seeking certain details about the four terrorists.
India has been seeking details of the phone numbers dialled by the four terrorists ahead of the attack on the airbase on the intervening night of January 1 and 2.
The numbers are believed to be in the names of people connected with Jaish-e-Mohammed terror group, including Mullah Dadullah and Kashif Jaan.
NIA has also given details, including the batch numbers, of food packets used by the terrorists after infiltrating into India on December 30. The terrorists had carefully buried the packets which had Pakistani markings and manufacturing dates of November and December 2015, the sources said.
