Pakistan probe team to visit Pathankot terror attack site in March

India is ready to receive a special investigating team (SIT) from Pakistan and share evidence on Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terrorists and planners of the Pathankot terror attack.

Updated on: Feb 20, 2016, 24:40:27 IST

Hindustan Times | By Shishir Gupta, New Delhi

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After Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif lived up to his assurance to his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi on registering an FIR in the Pathankot airbase strike, India is ready to receive a special investigating team (SIT) from across the border and share evidence on Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terrorists and planners of the attack.

A SIT from Pakistan will visit India and share evidence on Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terrorists and planners of the Pathankot terror attack. (PTI File Photo)

No decision has been taken yet on the proposed foreign secretary-level talks or the possibility of Modi and Sharif meeting on the sidelines of the Nuclear Security Conference (NSC) in Washington from March 31 to April 1.

Top government sources told HT on condition of anonymity that New Delhi was informed about the FIR on Wednesday through diplomatic back channels and a copy of the legal instrument was shared subsequently.

Read | ‘Fifth and Sixth’ Pathankot attackers still a missing piece in probe

The FIR, based on information given by Indian national security advisor Ajit Doval to his Pakistani counterpart Naseer Khan Janjua on January 2, has been registered under Sections 302 (murder), 309 (attempt to murder) and 109 (abetment) of the Pakistan Penal Code, 7 (punishment for acts of terror) and 21 (security to witness and judges) of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997. The FIR is against unknown people and does not exclude JeM chief Masood Azhar.

“Pakistani PM Sharif and NSA Janjua have lived up to their promise of taking action against the JeM by rounding up no less than 25 people, questioning Masood Azhar and sealing the seminaries affiliated to the group. Azhar has not been named in the FIR as it is still to be backed by specific evidence against the jihadist leader. India will share evidence with the Pakistan SIT so that action can be taken against Azhar,” a senior official said.

It is understood that a six-member team led by inspector general Rai Tahir of the counter-terrorism department will arrive in India in March and visit the terror strike spot with the permission of the defence ministry and the Indian Air Force (IAF).

The Indian security establishment is satisfied with Pakistan’s move to register the FIR and expects Sharif to take action against the JeM after New Delhi shares full evidence. India is also amenable to an NIA team visiting Pakistan with Islamabad’s permission to close the investigation.

Read | India-Pak talks not dependent on Pathankot probe: Indian envoy

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shishir Gupta
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.Read More

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