PATHANKOT - Pakistani team probing the terror attack on the IAF base in Pathankot ended its day-long visit to the frontier base and nearby areas in the border belt on Tuesday.
It is the first time a Pakistani probe panel, which included an officer of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, was allowed any access to a high-value Indian defence facility.
The Indian Air Force base was attacked on January 2, leading to the death of seven Indian security personnel and all the attackers after an 80-hour gunbattle.
According to Indian media, the five-member Pakistani team accompanied by Indian officials visited the ‘sanitised’ areas at Pathankot airbase.
The team was led by Punjab's additional inspector general of police, counter-terrorism department, Muhammad Tahir Rai.
"We have, physically and visually, barricaded the airbase. Tent walls were erected around the crime scene (gunbattle site) and nothing else will be visible to the JIT members," said an IAF officer. Orange and blue-coloured tarpaulin could be seen draping the interiors of the strategic facility, in an apparent indication of "visual prohibition" being put in place.
The JIT was not allowed to interact with IAF or other defence and security officials and personnel involved in the operation against the terrorists. Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar had said on Monday that the Pakistani team would not have access to the operational area of the base but only the isolated "crime scene".
The team, which landed at Amritsar on Tuesday morning, was driven in a bullet-proof SUV to Pathankot, escorted to the rear side of the sprawling IAF base in a mini bus accompanied by NIA officials. Punjab's Police's elite SWAT commandos guarded them.
The Pakistani officials entered through a specially created entrance in the peripheral wall of the airbase and were taken to specific areas in the complex. They spent a few minutes at the base.
They were kept away from the technical area and shown only those areas where security forces had engaged the terrorists.
The team later visited various locations in the border belt of Pathankot district to retrace the movement of the terrorists.
They were shown the places where Indian police officer Salwinder Singh's vehicle was hijacked by the terrorists and then abandoned near the base, the place where taxi driver Ikagar Singh was murdered and the route taken by the terrorists while reaching the IAF base. "The Pakistani team was mostly driven around the places through which the terrorists came. At most places, they did not get out of their vehicle," a Punjab police officer accompanying the team told IANS.
The Pakistani officers were kept away from the media.
The JIT members, who arrived in New Delhi on Sunday and had meetings with National Investigation Agency (NIA) officers, left for Amritsar on Tuesday morning en route to Pathankot.
The Pakistani team includes ISI's Lt-Col Tanvir Ahmed, Lahore's Deputy Director General Intelligence Bureau Mohammad Azim Arshad, Military Intelligence Lt-Col Irfan Mirza and Gujaranwala CTD investigating officer Shahid Tanver.