JIT received limited cooperation in India: FO
ISLAMABAD: The Foreign Office said on Wednesday that Pakistani investigators who visited India for the Pathankot attack probe received limited cooperation from Indian authorities. It said in a statement that no conclusions had been reached in the investigations, which were ongoing.
The FO statement comes almost a week after the investigation team returned home.
Detailing the activities undertaken during the March 27-April 1 visit, it said the Pakistani Joint Investigation Team (JIT) received a presentation from the Indian National Investigation Agency (NIA), which was leading the probe. The JIT briefed the NIA on investigations made in Pakistan in addition to visiting the crime scene and interviewing some of the witnesses.
“The JIT visited the crime scene and also recorded the statements of some witnesses. However, witnesses belonging to the Indian security forces were not produced before it,” the statement said, underscoring that access to primary witnesses was not given to the Pakistani team.
The FO emphasised that the visit of the JIT “took place in the context of the cooperative approach being pursued by the government of Pakistan as part of its commitment to effectively fight terrorism in all its forms”.
Published in Dawn, April 7th, 2016