Indian officials are "not responding positively" to demands for factual data the five-member Pakistani Joint Investigation Team (JIT) requires for the furtherance of investigation into the said Pathankot airbase attack. Comprising Punjab counter-terrorism department's AIG Muhammad Tahir Rai, Deputy DG Lahore Intelligence Bureau Mohammed Azim Arshad and military intelligence officer Lieutenant-Colonel Irfan Mirza, the JIT on Monday met officials of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in New Delhi with many ifs and buts in mind about the authenticity of India's account of the murky incident.
"Pakistan is standing with international commitments by formation of (the) JIT... but Indian government is not responding positively," said sources privy to the matter in Pakistan. Indians, they said, had provided none of the details Pakistani investigators had asked for to counter-check credibility of the claims New Dalhi had made so far.
Having found at least three major flaws in what the sources described them as "false flag Pathankot attack", the JIT had demanded Indian officials of the call data record as well as IMEI and IMSI numbers of the cell phones belonging to Punjab SP Salwinder Singh, his wife, gunmen, base commander of the airbase and others related to the case. At least 13 other items the Pakistani JIT sought included copies of the three FIRs lodged in the hours-long deadly gunbattle and of vehicle accident, autopsy report of the slain taxi driver Ikagar Singh, sketches and CCTV footages, service and bank account records of SP Singh, record of the Dargah Panjpeer's caretaker and a copy of threat alert issued to the affected air force base by MOHA.
Also, Indians are silent on the security measures the concerned base commander had taken, any available video coverage of the attack, transcript of the wireless communication during the claimed operation and autopsy reports, DNA samples and items recovered from the four assailants and cell phones thereof. The Pakistani investigators also wanted to know details about the Gurdwara from where the driver of SP Singh was evacuated to hospital.
Also, Pakistani investigators had sought access to the Commander Guard Force of Pathankot airbase, commander of National Security Guards and any individual having seen the attackers' move in the area. Indian officials, however, hushed all these up. The Pakistani JIT would, reportedly, be given access only to the site where the driver Ikagar was killed by the terrorists and the places where the vehicle of SP Singh was waylaid. The JIT would also be allowed to question witnesses like SP Singh, his cook Madan Gopal and jeweler friend Rajesh Verma, who were in Singh's car.
As the joint probe has reached into an advanced stage, the deep-rooted mistrust between the two nuclear-armed arch rivals appears to be at work. The members of Pakistani JIT, the sources said, would be looking into certain self-contradictory statements which different Indian officials have been issuing time-to-time in recent weeks. The first flaw, they said, was New Delhi's statement that Pakistani attackers had entered into India near the Bias River. "But India's Border Security Force denies that anybody crossed into India from that point," the sources pinpointed.
Secondly, while the terrorists were said to have caught to slit the throat of a Sikh person, they set free three others, an SP, his driver and cook, only to create three witnesses! "They say the Pathankot airbase has a 10-feet high walls. And that the attackers crossed the walls with the help of ropes. But, interestingly, no rope clamp was found with the ropes," they said. Moreover, the sources said, given India's claim that no insider supported the terrorists. "Then how they entered the base with just ropes without any clamps," they questioned. On Tuesday (today), the five-member JIT would, reportedly, be taken by the BSF to Pathankot, without being allowed inside the airbase. On Wednesday, the JIT is scheduled to meet again with NIA officials at the Agency's headquarters in New Delhi.
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