Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has ordered formation of a high-profile joint investigation team (JIT) to investigate the links of the Pathankot airbase attackers with Pakistan, a media report said on Monday.
Sharif’s decision to form the JIT came after the leads provided by India which has linked the foreign secretary-level talks, scheduled for January 15, to Islamabad’s decisive action on the Pathankot terror attack.
The foreign secretary-level talks between India and Pakistan won’t happen if Pakistan does not act against the Pathankot attack masterminds, national security adviser Ajit Doval said on Monday.
The decision to form the JIT, comprising officials from Intelligence Bureau (IB), Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Military Intelligence (MI), was taken at a high-level meeting chaired by Sharif recently, reports said.
Interior minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, national security adviser Lt-Gen (retd) Nasser Khan Janjua, Prime Minister’s adviser on foreign affairs Sartaj Aziz, special assistant to the Prime Minister on foreign affairs Tariq Fatemi and finance minister Ishaq Dar attended the meeting.
Prime Minister Sharif “is taking an active role in getting to the bottom of the Pathankot incident,” a Prime Minister’s House source was quoted as saying by the paper.
“He also discussed the issue with army chief Gen Raheel Sharif and took him on board about the decision to form a JIT,” the source added.
“This investigation will be a major test of the prime minister to move Pakistan-India relationship forward and to break the cycle of off-again on-again talks between the two neighbours,” the source added.
In a pre-dawn attack on January 2, a group of heavily armed Pakistani terrorists, suspected to be belonging to Jaish-e-Mohammed outfit, struck at the Indian Air Force base in Pathankot.
