On the eve of the arrival of Pakistan’s joint investigation team visit, India is understood to be planning to provide the probe team access to witnesses, barring security personnel from the National S
On the eve of the arrival of Pakistan’s joint investigation team visit, India is understood to be planning to provide the probe team access to witnesses, barring security personnel from the National Security Guard or the BSF, in the Pathankot terror attack case. Sources said the five-member delegation led by Pak Punjab’s counter-terrorism department chief Addl IGP Muhammad Tahir Rai will be provided limited access to the Pathankot Air Force base. The airbase will be visually barricaded by the NIA to prevent any view of its critical areas, sources said.
India can make a request to Pakistan for allowing an Indian probe team into the country for investigations at a later date, the sources said. The Pakistani team, which also comprises Lahore’s intelligence bureau deputy director-general Mohammad Azim Arshad, Inter-Services Intelligence’s Lt. Col. Tanvir Ahmed, military intelligence’s Lt. Col. Irfan Mirza and Gujaranwala CTD investigating officer Shahid Tanveer, will be brought to the airbase in a special plane on March 29.
The team will be briefed thoroughly on March 28 at the NIA headquarters here which will include a 90-minute presentation on the investigations carried in the case so far, sources said. This will be the first time that Pakistani intelligence and police officials are travelling to India to investigate a terror attack.
Witnesses, except personnel of the NSG, BSF and Garud commandos of the IAF, have been lined up for the team. Witnesses include Punjab SP Salwinder Singh, his jeweller friend Rajesh Verma and cook Madan Gopal and 17 injured people. The three were kidnapped by the terrorists on the intervening night of December 31 and January 1 before they entered the base.
The NIA is expected to share details about the four terrorists, which includes their native villages, people who had cooperated with them and facilitated their entry into India through Bamiyal village on the Indo-Pak border.
DNA samples were taken from the energy drink that they are believed to have consumed before carrying out the attack, they said. The Pakistani team will also be taken to the point where the Jaish terrorists had breached into India, sources said.
Sources said the Pakistani side is also expected to be asked about some details that India had sought from them, including some phone numbers and details of companies who had supplied packed food to the terrorists.
