NEW DELHI: After Pakistan filed a First Information Report on Pathankot terror attack, there is a glimmer of hope that the stalled meeting between foreign secretaries may take place soon, even though New Delhi is a bit miffed that Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar got no mention in the FIR.
Over 40 days after India ended its operations against terrorists at the Indian Air Force base in Punjab, Pakistan’s deputy secretary, Interior Ministry, Atizaz-ud-Din filed an FIR in the police station of Counter Terrorism Department in Gujranwala, Punjab province against “unknown persons”. According to official sources in India, the filing of the FIR is a “step in the right direction”. “However, it is disappointing that neither the name of JeM nor Masood Azhar was incorporated in the FIR,” he said.
Pakistan Punjab’s Law Minister Rana Sanaullah said the guilty would not be spared. “I don’t want to name anyone at this stage. Let the probe be completed and if Masood Azhar is involved, action will be taken,” said Sanaullah.
Incidentally, the Indian High Commission in Islamabad was not informed about the FIR till late in the evening. Officials said that the information could have been conveyed through the ‘terror track’, which is being directly managed by the two National Security Advisors.
As per Pakistani TV channel Geo News, the Special Investigation Team, constituted by Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, had recommended the filing of the FIR after “partially confirming” the Indian version. The final call to file the police case based on the recommendation was taken by the Pakistan PM. Incidentally, the development in the Pathankot terror attack comes in the wake of numerous media reports in Pakistan and India over the last few weeks saying that Islamabad had allegedly informed New Delhi on the evidence against Masood Azhar. However, government sources in Delhi had remained adamant that no such message was conveyed by Pakistan.
The complaint filed by the Pakistani interior ministry official, which was the basis of the FIR, states that Indian NSA informed that “attackers had come from Pakistan after planning the attack and had probably crossed border from adjacent to Pathankot general area”.
“While inside India, they had been making phone calls to Pakistan on following numbers - 0092-301-7775273, 0092-321-3132786, 0092-345-3030479, 0092-302-4880619 and 0092-300-0957212 and that the attackers belonged to a proscribed organisation,” said the complaint.
Despite the complaint stating that Doval had pointed the finger at a “proscribed organisation”, the FIR remains silent on the identity of the perpetrators.
Sharif, Modi may meet in US in March
Islamabad: Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi may meet next month in the US on the sidelines of a nuclear summit being hosted by President Barack Obama, a media report said on Friday. Both Sharif and Modi have accepted Obama’s invitation to attend the nuclear summit in Washington on March 31 and April 1, a Pakistan newspaper said. PTI