Pathankot Attack: A Police Complaint Is Filed in Pakistan

Mangalore Today News Network

New Delhi, Feb 19, 2016:  The police in Pakistan have filed a complaint in the Pathankot airbase attack, a move that records the first official acknowledgement in the country that the attack was executed from Pakistani soil.

An FIR or First Information Report has been registered by Pakistan’s anti-terror police but it is against "unknown persons".

The Interior Ministry Deputy Director Aitzaz-ud-Din is the main complainant in the complaint, which also refers to the phone numbers provided by Indian intelligence agencies.

Seven soldiers were martyred in the January 2 attack by six terrorists who entered the high security Pathankot air base in Punjab.

India has said that the attack was carried out by the Jaish-e Mohammed, a Pakistan-based terror group. The outfit’s chief Masood Azhar is on the run and may be hiding in Afghanistan, top sources in Islamabad told NDTV recently.

India had handed over evidence to Pakistan which reportedly includes recordings of phone calls between the terrorists and their handlers in Pakistan, including Masood Azhar.

Breaking with its habit of denying its citizens were involved in the attack, Pakistan started an investigation into the conspiracy.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif pledged his cooperation to the investigation in a phone conversation with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Media reports from Pakistan said that Azhar and his relatives had been placed under house arrest in Islamabad, and that Jaish seminaries and offices had been raided and shut down. India, however, said it had not been told that Azhar had been arrested.

Clarifying the conflicting reports from Pakistan, top-ranking officials in the Pakistan government told NDTV earlier this month that while some Jaish operatives are under arrest, Azhar was not among them
 
The Pathankot attack left talks scheduled between the two countries precariously placed just as they seemed to be improving.