New Delhi: Pakistan’s Joint Investigation Team (JIT) on Tuesday arrived at Pathankot airbase amid wide protests.
Activists of the Congress and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) protested outside the Pathankot airbase on Tuesday as a five-member team from Pakistan arrived in bulletproof SUVs to the base to investigate a terror attack in which seven military personnel were killed in January.
Congress protesters held black flags and banners of “Pakistan JIT (Joint Investigation Team) Go Back!” outside the airbase. With several policemen standing guard, they also burnt effigies.
Leading AAP protesters, Delhi minister Kapil Mishra alleged an “ISI-BJP coalition” and said: “We will not let Modi insult India. He cannot play with our security.
The Pakistan team is being taken to the area where six terrorists engaged in a gun-battle with security forces on January 2 – a part of the strategic air force base that is “non-sensitive”, according to the government.
Sensitive areas of the base have been barricaded to block the team from even a basic view of those facilities, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar asserted yesterday. The Pakistani team is also likely to be taken to the border to “retrace the route of the terrorists”. It may also be taken to the hospital where the bodies of the terrorists have been kept.
India has allowed the Pak team access to key witnesses – including a Punjab police officer who says he was kidnapped by the terrorists and his car was hijacked by them – but it has made it clear that the Pakistanis will not be allowed to question security personnel.
Yesterday, the team held discussions with Indian investigators in Delhi. Sources say they neither contradicted nor objected to India’s findings about how the Pakistan-based terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed carried out the Pathankot attack.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of capitulating to Pakistan” by allowing the team to investigate the attack. “If it is Pakistan-sponsored terrorism, how can Pakistan be probing itself?” Mr Kejriwal questioned.
Government sources say by allowing the Pakistani team access to key witnesses and evidence, they are preempting attempts by Islamabad to duck responsibility for the attack. They also stress that much of the access allowed will be reciprocal – in particular, they want access to the mastermind of the Pathankot attack, Maulana Masood Azhar, chief of terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed
In a six-hour presentation on Monday, India shared with the Pakistan team details of the call records of the terrorists and their handlers like Qasim Jaan, Ashfaq Ahmed and Hafiz Abdul Shakur in Pakistan, DNA samples and statements of witnesses.
