Presumed Guilty? Pathankot attack FIR registered in Gujranwala
Indian Authorities "disappointed" for not naming Masood Azhar and JeM.
Dunya News Report (Madiha Fareed)
GUJRANWALA - Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) Punjab has filed First Information Report (FIR) against unnamed suspects involved in Pathankot Airbase India attack. The FIR was registered on the complaint of Federal Deputy Secretary, Ministry of Interior Aitzaz-ud-din on the basis of information provided by Indian National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval.
“It has been informed by National Security Advisor, India that on 2nd January 2016, four persons entered the premises of Pathankot Airbase India and resorted to heavy firing resulting in death of 07 personnel. The attackers were also killed in the ensuing gun battle. It has been further reported by Indian NSA that these attackers had come from Pakistan after planning the attack ad had probably crossed border adjacent to Pathankot general area”, the FIR read.
The FIR number 06/2016 is filed under section 302, 324, 109 of Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) related to murder and attempted murder, and Section 7 and 21-I of Anti-Terrorism Act. The FIR also contains the telephone numbers allegedly contacted by the militants during the siege.
.jpg)
The FIR is deemed important as it was essential to start legal proceeding in Pakistan. Punjab’s law minister said on Friday while talking to the media that the FIR is a proof that Pakistan doesn’t support terrorism and is serious in helping India in the ongoing probe.
Pakistan had constituted a 6-member Judicial Investigation Commission (JIT) to probe the Pathankot attack right after the incident took place on January 2nd, 2016. The FIR was reportedly filed on the recommendations of JIT.
It is reported that an Investigation Team from Pakistan will visit India next month to collect more evidence.
On January 2nd, 2016, four gunmen broke into Pathankot Airbase in India’s Punjab Province and engaged Indian forces in a heavy gunfire battle; the operation lasted four days killing all four attackers and seven Indian military personnel. The instance came roughly a week after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s surprise visit to Pakistan and jeopardized the hardly restored dialogue process between two nuclear armed nations.
India had identified Jaish-e-Muhammed (JeM)’s Chief Masood Azhar as the mastermind behind the attack, his brother Rauf and five others for carrying out the attacks. However the FIR lodged in Pakistan doesn’t contain any names of persons or organizations.
The responsibility of the attacks was initially claimed by United Jihad Council (UJC), a militant group based in Indian Kashmir. However, according to Indian media reports, the items recovered from the attackers such as JeM Pamphlets were sufficient to link them to JeM and Pakistan.
Maulana Masood Azhar has been one of India’s most wanted terrorists; he was arrested in 1994 in Kashmir but was released in 1999 in exchange for Indian passengers from a hijacked Air India Jet. In 2001, he was accused of masterminding the attacks on Indian parliament that left nine people dead. He formed Jaish-e-Muhammad in 2001 with the motive to separate Kashmir from India. The group was formed after a split within Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM). JeM has been banned in Pakistan since 2001, but has continued its operations under a new name “Khuddam-ul-Islam”.
Indian Authorities have long been adamant that JeM is behind insurgency in Indian –administered part of Kashmir and other parts of India. Indian officials also accuse Pakistani military for nurturing militant groups like JeM.
In response to initial intelligence provided by Indian authorities on Pathankot incident, Pakistani security agencies had carried out a series of raids across the country and detained a number of suspects belonging to the banned militant organizations. Last month, Punjab’s law minister had announced that Masood Azhar has been taken into “protective custody”, but later an Indian media outlet NDTV denied the news claiming that Pakistani authorities are clueless regarding the whereabouts of Masood Azhar, who maybe in Afghanistan.
Indian government authorities expressed “disappointment” for not naming Masood Azhar and JeM but have hailed Pakistan’s initiative ofregistering the FIR and called it a “small step” in the “right direction”. The Indian media is accrediting this news as “an official acknowledgement” by Pakistan that the attacks were indeed executed from Pakistani soil.
The news of lodging FIR did not receive very positive response from security analysts in Pakistan. Some criticized that Pakistan is going great lengths to please its always displeased neighbors and every time both countries sit down for dialogue, the victim is always India. Some said that Pakistan is living up to its reputation of “Presumed Guilty” when it comes to even an ant dying in India.
When asked for a comment,,A senior Security Analyst Lt. Gen (R.) Amjad Shoaib disparaged government saying that “it is too early to file the FIR as the evidence provided by Indian authorities is vague and insufficient”. He said it has weakened Pakistan’s stance and will further harm Pakistan’s position in the future, also it is somewhat of an acknowledgement that Pakistan’s soil was used in these attacks.
Another point to ponder is that Indian authorities were ambivalent regarding the number of attackers involved in the assault. The forensic evidence points out that there were only 4 terrorists contradicting the initial number of 6. It raises a serious question that how Indian Authorities and media were so quick to point finger at Pakistan even when they were unsure about the exact number of attackers. Indian Border Security Forces (BSF) had also denied any breach on the border in Pathankot area.
The Pathankot episode had stymied the dialogue process between the two nuclear armed neighbors. The Foreign Secretary level talks were scheduled for mid-January 2016 but have been delayed and are yet to take place.
With the filing of this FIR, the prospects have brightened that the FS-level talks will be resumed and Indian Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar will soon make his long due trip to Islamabad.
It is also pertinent to note that Nawaz Sharif and Narendra Modi are expected to meet next month in Washington during the nuclear summit on March 31-April1, as they have both accepted Barack Obama’s invitation to attend the summit.
