Pakistan’s JIT in India to probe Pathankot attacks

A five-member team of Pakistan’s Joint Investigation Team (JIT) arrived in India on March 27 to investigate the Pathankot terror attacks.  India has alleged that the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) group was responsible for the attacks and had provided damning evidence to Pakistan, linking JeM to the attack which paused the peace process between the two countries.   The investigating team is led by Punjab Counter-Terrorism Department Additional Inspector-General Muhammad Tahir Rai. The probe team has arrived in India just days before India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to meet his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif on the margins of the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington DC. India will provide the investigating team access to all witnesses in the Pathankot terror attack case, but not security personnel from National Security Guard or the Border Security Force. The investigators are expected to visit the Pathankot air base during the investigations after initial uncertainty on whether India would give the investigators access to the air base. However, the team is likely to get only access to  limited areas in the air base where the terrorists were engaged in a gun battle with security forces for nearly four days. India is also likely to push for a visit of its probe team to Pakistan for carrying out investigations there. The airbase will be barricaded by the NIA to prevent any view of its critical areas.