Islamabad: Months after the horrifying Pathankot terror attack, a Pakistani Joint Investigation Team (JIT), which visited the incident site in March, is still not convinced that the attack was plotted from its soil.
According to a report in Hindustan Times, a senior aide of Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif dismissed India’s assertion that terrorists who attacked Pathankot air base had called Jaish-e-Mohammad leaders in Pakistan several times.
“Anybody can call the Jaish-e-Mohammad numbers from India,” he was quoted as saying in the report.
Peace talks between India and Pakistan derailed completely after the terror attack at Pathankot IAF base and the new pronouncements from the neighbouring country are likely to make the situation worse.
The four Pakistani terrorists who attacked the frontier air base on intervening night of January 1 and 2 were neutralised by the Indian security personnel. India had claimed that one of the terrorists, identified as Nasir, had called his mother just before the attack and told her that he was on a suicide mission.
On this, the aide said, “The conversation does not prove that he went from here. The National Investigation Agency could not tell us the exact location from where the terrorists had crossed over from Pakistan into India.”
Soon after the attack on January 2, 2016, Nawaz Sharif had called Prime Minister and promised cooperation. However, Pakistan seems to be handling the investigation same as the 26/11 attacks.
It is important to mention here that after the Mumbai attacks in 2008, Pakistan had arrested Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, the military commander of the Lashkar-e-Taiba terror group, but subsequently freed him on bail later.
India’s National Investigation Agency (NIA) has also provided DNA samples of the four terrorists to Pakistan’s Joint Investigation Team (JIT).
Moreover, Pakistan also seems to have ignored NIA’s request to visit Pakistan to investigate into the audacious attack.
