LeT behind Dinanagar attack, JeM involved in Pathankot siege: SIT

Jupinderjit Singh

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 31

The Special Investigation Team (SIT) formed to probe the Dinanagar terror attack believes that the attack was undertaken by Laskhar-e-Toiba, while the attack on the Pathankot Air Force Station was the handiwork of Jaish-e-Mohammad. Both are Pakistan-based terror outfits.

While Pakistan premier Nawaz Sharif had yesterday said Pakistan would soon complete investigation into the Pathankot terror attack, he continues to maintain silence on the Dinanagar attack.

The SIT officials said the three terrorists who attacked Dinanagar had hidden their identity and organisation like the way Lashkar-e-Toiba worked. However, in Pathankot, the JeM terrorists made no effort to hide that they were from that organisation and left a trail of evidence tracking them to Pakistan.

The JeM terrorists left a note claiming responsibility for the attack, besides several other tools made in Pakistan.

However, during the Dinanagar attack, the terrorists had scratched all labels tracing them to Pakistan. It was by chance that they left a made in Pakistan label inside a hand glove.

The SIT members consisting of Punjab Police officials led by ADGP Rohit Choudhary met here on Friday to discuss the update on the investigations. The team has concluded the route taken by the three terrorists to infiltrate into India from Pakistan.

Though the Border Security Force (BSF) did not agree that the terrorists crossed the Punjab frontier and may have come via the Kathua border with Pakistan, the SIT has concluded that the terrorists came from Mastgarh village in the Narot Jaimal Singh area crossing the Ravi river and its tributary and reached Dinanagar after travelling 16 km via Makaura village.

The SIT has based this finding on scientific analysis and route mapping of the GPS devices by Punjab Police IG Ananya Gautam and his team. The SIT report says experts from the National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO) corroborated the findings.

The finding is significant as mystery shrouded the route adopted by the terrorists even after six months of the incident. Diverse claims on the route were being made within the Punjab Police and by other organisations.

It is suspected that the group of terrorists, who attacked the Pathankot Air Base, could have followed the same route.

The report also said the SIT had warned about a future infiltration from the same route unless effective preventive actions were taken.

The BSF and the Punjab Police did not seem to have followed the warning as another group of terrorists struck five months later through the same area.