For the second time within a week, India on Tuesday summoned Pakistan high commissioner Abdul Basit and handed him with proof of the cross-border origins of Uri terror attack, Ministry of External Affairs said today.
This was the second time that Basit was called in by New Delhi over the terror strike at an Indian Army camp in Uri that led to death of 18 soldiers.
The Foreign Secretary called in Basit and told him that the preliminary interrogation reveals identity of one of the slain Uri attackers as Hafiz Ahmed, son of Feroz and resident of Dharbang, Muzaffarabad and also gives details of Pakistan- based handlers,” Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Vikas Swarup said in a series of tweets.
The investigators have also been able to identify the handlers as Mohammad Kabir Awan and Basharat, details of whom were provided to Basit.
Jaishankar told the High Commissioner in clear terms that continuing cross-border terrorist attacks from Pakistan against India are unacceptable.
"Local villagers in the Uri sector apprehended on 21 September and handed over to Indian security forces two individuals from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir who have acted as guides for terrorists and helped them infiltrate across the LOC.
"Their personal particulars are -Faizal Hussain Awan, 20 years, S/o Gul Akbar Resident of Potha Jahangir, Muzaffarabad and Yasin Khursheed, 19 years, S/o Mohammed Khurshid Resident of Khiliana Kalan, Muzaffarabad," Basit was told.
During his interrogation, Awan has deposed to the NIA that they had "guided and facilitated" the border crossing of the group that perpetrated the September 18 Uri massacre, the Foreign Secretary told him.
In another incident on September 23, 2016, one Pakistani national, Abdul Qayoom, R/o Sialkot was apprehended in Molu sector opposite Pakistan's Sialkot sector and has confessed to undergoing three weeks of training with the terrorist group LeT and donating substantial funds to Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation, their front organization, Basit was conveyed.
"We are willing to provide the Pakistan High Commission consular access to these three individuals apprehended in connection with terrorist attacks in India," the Foreign Secretary told the Pakistani envoy.
Basit was also told that these apprehensions and subsequent interrogation underline the cross-border infiltration that had been the subject of their previous discussion.
"We would once again strongly urge the Government of Pakistan to take seriously its commitment not to allow terrorist attacks against India from its soil and territory under its control. Continuing cross-border terrorist attacks from Pakistan against India are unacceptable," Jaishankar asserted.
Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar had summoned Abdul Basit on September 21 and told him that latest terrorist attack in Uri only underlines that the infrastructure of terrorism in Pakistan remains active.
He had also given Basit the evidence of involvement of Pak-based terrorists in the Uri attack and demanded that it refrain from supporting and sponsoring terrorism directed against this country.
Jaishankar provided Basit with the content of GPS recovered from the bodies of terrorists with coordinates that indicate the point and time of infiltration across the LoC and the subsequent route to the terror attack site and grenades with Pakistani markings as evidence of Pakistan's role in Uri attack in which 18 jawans were killed.
