ISLAMABAD: Chief of the proscribed Jaish-e-Mohamamd (JeM), Maulana Masood Azhar and his brother Mufti Abdul Rauf have been taken into protective custody in connection with the attack on India’s Pathankot airbase.
According to sources, JeM’s chief, his brother and close aides were taken into custody and shifted to an unknown location.
The sources further said that the concerned authorities were interrogating them over the armed attack on Pathankot airbase.
According to Indian media, the New Delhi said if the reports of Maulana Masood Azhar’s arrest are true, then it is a positive development.
Earlier on Wednesday Pakistan said it had arrested several members of JeM’s on suspicion of masterminding an attack on the Indian airbase.
India had claimed that JeM group was behind masterminding an attack earlier this month on the airbase, near the boarder.
Pakistan's Prime Minister's office said in a statement that the offices of the group were being traced and sealed and further investigations are underway, and that the government wants to send a team of special investigators to the Pathankot air base in India for further investigation.
News of the arrests comes 48 hours before a rare meeting between the foreign secretaries of two countries is scheduled to take place.
Pakistan has promised it would get to the bottom of who was behind the assault on the air base after India handed over evidence to Pakistan that it said implicated Jaish-e-Mohammad in the January 2 attack, in which seven military personnel were killed.
India´s Ministry of External Affairs was not immediately available for comment but said earlier it would decide late on Wednesday whether Foreign Secretary Subrahmanyam Jaishankar would travel to Islamabad on Friday.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister’s office said in a statement the government had made "considerable progress" in investigating the attack.
"Based on the initial investigations in Pakistan, and the information provided, several individuals belonging to Jaish-e-Mohammad, have been apprehended," the office of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said.
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