Questions remain over allowing Pak SIT in airbase

Even as India agreed to host a team of investigators from Pakistan to probe the recent terror strike on the IAF facility at Pathankot in Punjab, it is still not clear if they would be allowed to visit the forward airbase.

Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on Saturday did not give a direct reply when journalists asked him in Jaipur if Pakistan’s Special Investigation Team would be allowed to visit the scene of the terror strike, given the fact that the forward airbase had several strategic assets of the IAF. “I can assure (or guarantee) that without my permission, no one can come.

Those terrorists who came in were the last,” a PTI report from Jaipur quoted him as saying in response. The Pakistan SIT — comprising senior intelligence and counter-terrorism officials of the country — will soon visit India. It will conduct a probe into the attack and collect evidences to be used by the prosecution against the Jaish-e-Mohammed operatives arrested in Pakistan for plotting the latest terrorist attack in India.