Pakistan’s Joint Investigation Team (JIT) arrived in the national capital on Sunday to probe the deadly terrorist attack on the Pathankot Air Force Base.
Led by Punjab Counter-Terrorism Department Additional Inspector-General Muhammad Tahir Rai, the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) left for India on a special plane from Allama Iqbal International Airport. “The five-member Pakistani investigation team left for New Delhi around 11.45 today,” Muhammad Tariq, an immigration official at the Lahore Airport said.
Intelligence Bureau’s Deputy Director-General Lahore Muhammed Azim Arshad, Military Intelligence’s Lieutenant- Colonel Irfan Mirza, Lieutenant-Colonel Tanvir Ahmad of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Inspector Shahid Tanveer, a Punjab police officer based in Gujranwala, are the other members of the JIT.
The team would visit Pathankot on March 29 through a helicopter.
The Indian authorities are still working on modalities authorities. As of now, it is said that they will not go by road and will only fly to Pathankot.
Reports state that the team’s movement would be restricted only to the area of the engagement between security forces and the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terrorists.
India’s anti-terror agency NIA is ready to help the team meet 17 people injured in the early-January assault blamed on JeM.
This is the first time an official of Pakistan’s spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), is part of such a high-profile team that has India’s nod.
The team, however, will not be able to question soldiers from the National Security Guard and the Border Security Force, and commandos of Indian Air Force’s Garud division.
The sources said the team will not be provided complete access to the Pathankot air force base but to limited areas where Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorists were engaged in an 80-hour gunbattle with security forces.
The airbase will be visually barricaded by NIA to prevent any view of its critical areas.
