LAHORE - As the visit of Pakistani investigation team to India for Pathankot airbase probe is being awaited, the team has already arrived there secretly.
Punjab counter-terrorism department chief Muhammad Tahir Rai, who heads the high-powered JIT, has reached India along with some other officials, a senior official disclosed to The Nation late yesterday.
A joint investigation team (JIT) formed on the orders of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had formally started work last week, and its first meeting was convened in Lahore to discuss the case in detail.
Interestingly, the Punjab home department yesterday also re-notified the JIT, ordering the investigators to submit the interim probe report to the court within two weeks.
It was not known if there was any change or the new notification retained the same members as that of the earlier JIT, which was constituted by the interior ministry in mid-January.
Besides Tahir Rai, the previous team included Intelligence Bureau Lahore Director Azeem Arshad, CTD Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Additional Inspector General Salahuddin Khan, Federal Investigation Agency Director Usman Anwar, and two intelligence officers –Brigadier Noman Saeed of ISI and Lt-Col Irfan Mirza of Military Intelligence.
A provincial government official last night confirmed to The Nation that additional inspector general of police, Tahir Rai, had arrived in India, stating that the move was being kept secret on both sides of the border.
“What I can confirm is that Rai is in India right now. We can’t tell how many other officials are accompanying him,” the official said, requesting anonymity.
When asked when exactly the team left for India and for how many days they would stay there, the official declined to comment further.
India had alleged that Jesh-e-Muhammad (JeM), a banned Pakistani militant outfit, was responsible for attack on an airbase in the Indian Punjab on January 2 which left seven security personnel dead. New Delhi asked Islamabad to move against the perpetrators of the assault.
Responding positively, Pakistan registered a case on the basis of some leads provided by India and formed an investigation team comprising high-ranking officials of police and intelligence agencies.
The counter-terrorism department (CTD) of Pakistani Punjab on Thursday lodged a case against six “non-state actors” for plotting the deadly assault on the Pathankot airbase in India.
Official sources in the Punjab Home department said the JIT members during their visit to India would collect facts about the Pathankot attack. One official said the team would also discuss modalities for carrying out joint investigations with their Indian counterparts.
“Although no timeframe has been given to complete the probe, it is expected that the team will complete the investigations within 15 days,” another official said. “If the probe remains incomplete after two weeks, the JIT may seek more time from the court since it is a matter of criminal procedure code”.
Earlier, four suspects were detained in connection with the phone numbers mentioned in the first information report. The investigators are examining the SIM registration and calls data of the suspected numbers. The mobile phone companies were asked to provide details of the persons using these phone numbers.