Pak JIT visits Pathankot Airbase amid limited access, protests

PATHANKOT: The five-member joint investigation team (JIT) from Pakistan visited the Indian Air Force base in Pathankot on Tuesday and ended its day-long visit to the frontier base and nearby areas in the border belt amid vocal protests by the activists of Congress, AAP and Shiv Sena.

The team, which landed at Amritsar on Tuesday morning, was driven in a bulletproof SUV to the airbase, escorted to the rear side of the sprawling IAF base in a mini-bus accompanied by the NIA officials. The Punjab Police elite SWAT commandos guarded them.

The Pakistani officials entered through a specially-created entrance in the peripheral wall of the airbase and were taken to specific areas in the complex. They spent a few minutes at the base. They were kept away from the technical area and shown only those areas where security forces had engaged the terrorists.

The team later visited various locations in the border belt of Pathankot district to retrace the movement of terrorists.They were shown places where the Punjab Police officer Salwinder Singh’s vehicle was hijacked by terrorists and then abandoned near the base, the place where taxi driver Ikagar Singh was murdered and the route taken by the terrorists while reaching the IAF base.

“The Pakistani team was mostly driven around the places through which the terrorists came,” a Punjab Police officer accompanying the team told the IANS.Protests by Congress and Aam Aadmi Party activists erupted near the front gate of the base as the Pakistan team headed towards it. But the demonstrators were about three kilometers from the area the JIT visited.

The protestors carried black flags and banners and shouted "Go Back" slogans. The Pakistani officers were kept away from the media.

The JIT members, who arrived in New Delhi on Sunday and had meetings with the National Investigation Agency (NIA) officers, left for Amritsar on Tuesday morning en route to Pathankot.

"We have, physically and visually, barricaded the airbase. Tent walls were erected around the crime scene (gunbattle site) and nothing else will be visible to the JIT members," an IAF officer told IANS.

The JIT was not allowed to interact with the IAF or other defence and security officials and personnel involved in the operation against the terrorists. Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar Monday said the Pakistani team would not have access to the operational area of the base but only the isolated "crime scene".