Indian authorities issued visas for the five-man investigation team on Friday.
Advertisement
Sources said the team will visit the NIA headquarters in New Delhi on Monday where they will hold talks on the evidence collected and the progress of the investigation in the terror attack.
The NIA is also likely to apprise JIT with the fact that the terror attacks that took place in Kathua district and Samba army camp previous year had a similar pattern as the Pathankot air base attack. On March 29, the JIT, accompanied by NIA officials led by an IG Sanjeev Kumar Singh, will fly to Pathankot for a visit to the encounter site. “The riverine route and the village through which they entered along Pakistan border have all been identified by us”, said the official. It pointed out India facilitating the JIT probe was aimed at “reaching to the bottom of the case and nabbing the real perpetrators of the terror attack”.
The witnesses include Punjab Police Superintendent of Police Salwinder Singh, his jeweller friend Rajesh Verma and cook Madan Gopal and 17 injured people. The DNA samples of the terrorists involved in Pathankot attacks were taken from the Red Bull cans found with them.
On 18 February, Pakistan had lodged an FIR (first information report) in connection with the Pathankot terror attack without naming JeM chief Masood Azhar who India has accused of having masterminded the strike.
Pakistani team will also be taken to the point where the Jaish terrorists had breached into India, the sources said.
Moreover, they carry similar weapons that are manufactured in Russian Federation, eastern Asia or China and use Global Positioning System so that they are not tracked by the security agencies.
The terrorists were engaged in an 80-hour gunbattle with the security forces at the IAF base from the intervening night of January 1 and 2.
Pakistan High Commission has made all the arrangements for the JIT’s stay in a hotel in New Delhi.
This indicates that the terrorists plan such attacks in pairs of two, four or six and hijack a auto. It is in the “spirit of goodwill and cooperation” that the access is being extended, sources said.
Advertisement
Officials say India has already sent its LR to Pakistan, and hopes to receive an invitation to visit Pakistan to collect evidence soon. Interestingly, sources said, they do not kill women and children.
