Pathankot case: NIA releases 4 terrorists’ photos, seek information

Days ahead of the visit by a Pakistani probe team in connection with the Pathankot terror attack on an IAF base, the NIA on Monday sought information on the four terrorists killed during the terror strike by releasing their photographs. The NIA’s release featured the bodies of the four terrorists with description of their height. The agency has said one of the terrorists had a toe missing on each foot. The pictures have been circulated and the public asked to share information about them. The NIA has said anybody giving “relevant and correct” information would be rewarded up to '1 lakh.

The special investigation team (SIT) of Pakistan is arriving on March 27 to ascertain the facts of the case and investigation carried out by the National Investigation Agency. It is learnt that the probe team will be allowed to enter the building at the airbase in Pathankot where the terrorists had been hiding to enable the SIT to probe the case. “We want Pakistan to probe the case to establish that the attackers were from that country. Whatever is required for the investigation, we will cooperate,” a top government functionary said, indicating that New Delhi is all set to put the ball in Islamabad’s court.

The outcome of the Pakistani SIT visit will also determine the level of cooperation Pakistan establishes with India which can have a bearing on the delayed foreign secretary-level talks which were stalled in the wake of the Pathankot terror strike.

The four terrorists, claimed to be hailing from Pakistan, were killed during the counter-offensive launched by Indian agencies, which began on January 2 and lasted more than 80 hours.

The NIA has already approached the Interpol for issuance of a black notice for the four. The international notice is issued for the identification of unidentified bodies found in a country. About the remaining two, the NIA is planning to approach another forensic laboratory to conduct a fresh test of the samples recovered from the airmen billet at the airbase.

The forensic laboratory in Chandigarh had said it had found human remains in the samples handed over by the NIA.

It will take some time before the identity of the remaining two was ascertained, an official source said, hinting the same may not be completed before the Pakistani SIT’s departure from India.

The Pakistan SIT will be holding consultations with the NIA about the probe conducted so far, the sources said.

India has already sent a letter rogatory to Pakistan seeking certain details about the four. 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 the Jaish-e-Mohammed, including Mullah Dadullah and Kashif Jaan. The numbers shared belong to Pakistani telecom operators like Mobilink, Warid and Telenor.

The NIA has also sought details and picture of sons of Khayam Baber, whose son had was part of the suicide squad that carried out the attack.

Kashif Jaan, one of the key handlers of the attackers, had accompanied the terrorists till the border, the sources said.

The bodies of four terrorists have been preserved. Out of the four, two of them have been identified as Nasir and Salim. Nasir was the one who had called his mother, Baber, in Bhawalpur using the phone snatched from the jeweller friend of a Superintendent of Police of Punjab Salwinder Singh. The NIA has also given details, including the batch number 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, sources said.