Four days after the Pathankot terror attack has been officially ended, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Tuesday evening called Prime Minister Narendra Modi and conveyed his sadness and grief on the loss of life.
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India has already given “specific and actionable information” to Pakistan on the involvement of militants in Pakistan in the attack, it said.
Defence minister Manohar Parrikar admitted on Tuesday that “security lapses” led to the terrorist attack on the IAF base here that left seven security personnel and six terrorists dead.
“Specific and actionable information in this regard has been provided to Pakistan”, read an official statement.
“We want to see the government of Pakistan continue to press the fight against terrorists, all terrorists, and to meet their own expectations that they’re not going to discriminate among groups”, he said.
Pakistan on Monday said it is working on “leads provided by the Indian government to effectively counter and eradicate terrorism” from the region. The two countries have also jostled for influence in nearby Afghanistan, where militants attacked the Indian consulate in the city of Mazar-e-Sharif on Sunday.
It quoted Sharif as saying that terrorists always tried to derail the process of peace between the two countries.
A senior External Affairs Ministry official said that a powerful explosion, which shook a double-storeyed building at the air base on Monday morning, indicated that two terrorists might have been hiding in Pathankot.
The NIA Chief also said the agency would try to identify the slain terrorists and may seek Pakistan’s help in getting the voice samples of those from across the border whose voices figured in intercepted conversations.
Parrikar said that he was anxious as to how the terrorists had managed to come inside the base which has a perimeter of 24.7 kms and located in an area of about 2,000 acres.
“The challenge of terrorism calls for strengthening our resolve to a cooperative approach”, Khalilullah said.
The Nation said the claim had “created several problems for Pakistan” and amounted to “a gauntlet thrown down to the Pakistani state”.
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The dawn raid on the Pathankot base triggered a 14-hour gunbattle on Saturday.
