Bodies of 4 terrorists involved in Pathankot attack buried

Ravi Dhaliwal

Tribune News Service

Pathankot, May 4

In a secret operation, carried out in the dead of the night, the NIA and Pathankot police took out the bodies of the four terrorists — who were killed in the January 2 Pathankot Air Force station attack — from the civil hospital mortuary and buried them with Muslim traditions at an undisclosed place.

Heavy security is still in place in and around the mortuary even as the corpses were shifted around 1am today. “The security is acting as a perfect subterfuge. The bodies have been taken out but we do not want information to be leaked due to security reasons. We can not disclose the exact place where the burial has taken place,” a top ranking officer said.

As per norms, for the purpose of the burial, the bodies were to be accompanied by a Maulvi (Muslim priest) and a local administration’s officer. However, no officer was willing to comment on the issue following which confusion prevailed whether these two persons were there at the time of burial or not.

SSP Rakesh Kaushal refused to come out with any statement. Likewise, civil surgeon Dr Ajay Bagga and the Senior Medical Officer (SMO) Dr Bhupinder Singh also remained tightlipped.

Senior officers of the border one, including IG Lok Nath Angra, too refused to be drawn into any type of a discussion.

An encore of the Dinanagar incident was played out. The bodies of the three terrorists killed in the Dinanagar attack were clandestinely shifted from the Gurdaspur civil hospital late at night with the cops refusing to divulge details.

For the last more than four months the corpses had been lying at the mortuary forcing the Civil Surgeon to write to his seniors many times requesting them to give permission to take them out. Space constraints were being cited as the main reasons for the shifting.

On April 28, an officer of the Additional SP rank of the National Investigation Agency (NIA), Vaibhav Srivastava, had visited the hospital with his team members to take DNA samples for the second time since January 3, the day the bodies were brought to the hospital. At that time he had assured the hospital authorities that the shifting could take place any time.

Six days later, the NIA and the Pathankot Police, in a joint operation, swung into action. Rumours were rife since yesterday evening about the operation but these were quickly scotched by senior police officers.

The cops kept on maintaining that the NIA had been assigned the task yet when the actual process of burial started, they were in the forefront guiding the NIA officers on the dos and don’ts.

Sources say the unprecedented security arrangements were in place at the time the bodies were driven away from the hospital.

The place where the bodies of the Dinanagar militants were given a burial also remains wrapped in secrecy. This time, too, the cops are not disclosing anything about the exact place where the corpses have been buried.