Pakistan's joint investigation team may not be allowed to visit Pathankot

Jaipur: Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on Saturday appeared to suggest that the joint investigation team proposed by Pakistan might not be allowed to visit Pathankot air base.

Asked by reporters about the proposed visit of the team to India, he said he does not know about it.

"I can assure (or guarantee) that without my permission no one can come. Those terrorists who came in were the last," he said.

Also read: Pathankot attack: Home Ministry seeks more time from Parliamentary panel

On a high-level security meeting held in Delhi yesterday under the chairmanship of Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Parrikar said, "It was a general meeting on security and has nothing to do with a specific case. It was about how to take care of our bases and assets and what are the lessons we learned from the gaps (that led to the Pathankot attack)."

Nudged by the US to expeditiously act against the perpetrators of the Pathankot terror attack, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has ordered formation of a high-profile joint investigation team (JIT) last week, to investigate the links of the attackers with Pakistan.

Sharif's decision to form the JIT came after the leads provided by India which had linked the Foreign Secretary-level talks, scheduled for January 15, to Islamabad's decisive action on the terror attack on its air base.

The decision to form the JIT, comprising officials from Intelligence Bureau (IB), Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Military Intelligence (MI), was taken at a high-level meeting chaired by Sharif last week.