New Delhi: Suspended Gurdaspur SP Salwinder Singh was Thursday questioned by the Pakistani joint investigation team that is probing the Pathankot attack. Mr Singh had claimed that he, along with two others, were abducted by four or five heavily-armed terrorists near Punjab’s Kolia village on the night of December 31-January 1. The terrorists had later attacked the Pathankot IAF base, in which seven security personnel were killed.
Mr Singh’s questioning by the JIT is significant as the Pakistani team sought to know how the terrorists managed to enter the airbase after crossing the border and whether there was any local assistance given to them.
On Thursday, the NIA completed recording the statements of witnesses and were also handed over more documents that included DNA reports of the four terrorists killed in the 80-hour gunbattle with the security forces. The JIT in all questioned 16 witnesses, including Mr Singh, his jeweller friend Rajesh Verma and cook Madan Gopal. The three were kidnapped by the Pathankot attackers who are believed to belong to the banned Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed terror outfit.
The terrorists had allegedly dumped Mr Verma after slitting his throat and continued their journey with Mr Singh and Gopal before jettisoning them a few kilometres away from the Pathankot airbase. The terrorists entered the airbase and carried out a seige that lasted 48 hours.
The Pakistani JIT had asked the NIA to hand over swabs of four terrorists identified as Nasir Hussain (Punjab province), Abu Bakar (Gujranwala), Umar Farooq and Abdul Qayum (both from Sindh). However, the Indian agency handed over to the visitors the DNA report of the terrorists and asked them to match those with their family members, NIA sources said.
“Talks are at a conclusive stage and hopefully tomorrow afternoon everything will be over,” NIA director-general Sharad Kumar said. Besides recording the statements of the three, the JIT also spoke to the caretaker of a shrine visited by Mr Singh before he was kidnapped, policemen and members of the public who spotted the abandoned hijacked vehicle. The statements of a few doctors who had conducted the post-mortem were also recorded.
The Pakistani JIT is headed by Punjab province’s additional IG (counter-terrorism department) Muhammad Tahir Rai and includes the ISI’s Lt. Col. Tanvir Ahmed.
