JOIN USIndia steps up pressure on Pak for NIA team visit
India has stepped up pressure on Pakistan to allow its investigators to visit the neighbouring country for probe into the terror attack on an Indian Air Force base in early January.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s National Security Advisor Ajit Doval called up his Pakistani counterpart Naseer Khan Janjua late on Friday and conveyed that the officials of the National Investigation Agency should be allowed to visit the neighbouring country to conduct the probe into attack on the IAF base at Pathankot in Punjab, sources privy to India-Pakistan exchanges on the terror strike said.
Doval, according to sources, insisted that the Indian investigators should be allowed to question terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed’s leader Moulana Masood Azhar in Pakistan. He conveyed to Janjua that a special NIA court at Mohali in Chandigarh had issued an “open-ended non-bailable warrant” against Azhar, his brother Abdul Rauf and two others.
A team of investigators from Pakistan recently visited India to conduct a probe into the attack on the IAF base at Pathankot. The NIA conveyed to the investigators from Pakistan that it would also like to visit the neighbouring country for the investigation into the role of Azhar and his organization JeM in planning, financing and coordinating the terror strike.
Though Islamabad not yet responded to the request from New Delhi, Pakistan’s High Commissioner to India, Abdul Basit, on Thursday appeared non-committal on allowing the NIA team to visit the neighbouring country.
Sources said that Doval and Janjua had also discussed about the outcome of the visit of Pakistani investigators to India. New Delhi conveyed to Islamabad that the visit of Pakistani investigators to India would help bring to justice terror operatives responsible for the attack.
A report in “Pakistan Today” newspaper last Tuesday claimed that the investigators had concluded that the attack was stage-managed by New Delhi to malign Pakistan.