''New evidence’ of Pakistan’s involvement in Pathankot?

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, August 29

India will “confront” Pakistan with new evidence it has received from the US pointing to its “involvement” in the Pathankot terrorist strike, sources in the National Investigation Agency said on Monday.

Sources claimed the NIA was compiling a detailed report based on information it received from the US on a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty request that it sent.

The information received three months ago has provided new evidence of Pakistan’s “involvement” in the attack, the sources said.  

NIA will send a report to the Ministry of Home Affairs. The report will then be sent to Pakistan, sources said.

The development comes within months of NIA Chief Sharad Kumar’s reported statement that the agency had no evidence to point to Pakistan establishment’s involvement in the attack.

The statement, reportedly made in an interview in June, quickly escalated into a controversy between the two rival neighbours, even as the agency claimed Kumar had been “misquoted”.

Some gunmen attacked the airbase in a pre-dawn strike on January 2.  Four gunmen of the Jaish-e-Mohammed — a militant organisation based in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir — and seven security personnel were killed in the standoff that followed.

A five-member Pakistani Joint Investigation Team (JIT), comprising Additional Inspector General of Police (IGP), a Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG), two Lt Colonels and one inspector, from Pakistan had visited India in March to collect, review and document physical evidences and to interview key witnesses and victims through the NIA in connection with the Pathankot attack.

India has been demanding that Pakistan should allow a team to visit the country for investigations.

Pakistan has denied its involvement in the attack.

The relationship between the two nations has cooled in the past few months over an ongoing unrest in Kashmir. — (With inputs from agencies)