Pathankot terrorists buried after Pak rejected NIA claims about their identify

New Delhi, May 9: The decision to bury the bodies of four JeM terrorists, slain during the Pathankot IAF base assault, was taken after Islamabad dismissed NIA's claims about their identity as "unverifiable".

Official sources said Pakistan had been provided with "all relevant information", including their addresses and parentage, but the authorities there said the information shared by India "could not be verified and it could be treated as unverifiable".

Following this, the NIA, after consultations with the government, decided to bury the bodies at an undisclosed location in the garrison city. The bodies had been kept in the mortuary of the Pathankot Civil Hospital since January three. The four were killed after an 80-hour gunbattle which began on the intervening night of January 1 and 2.

NIA had shared swabs of the four terrorists with the Joint Investigating Team (JIT) from Pakistan that had visited India in March-April this year. The anti-terror probe agency, which has preserved their DNA samples, had asked Pakistan to collect and send such samples of the people residing in places linked to the slain terrorists whose addresses had been shared with JIT.

The NIA had told the JIT about the identities of the terrorists and later sent supplementary information about their parentage and residential addresses. One of the terrorists was identified as Nasir Hussain who stayed at Vehari, a town 100 km from Multan in Punjab province of Pakistan.

He was the son of Mohd Mansa who lived in house number WB-89, Mohalla Chak in the town. Hussain was also identified as Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorist who had called up his mother Khayyam Babbar minutes before the terror group launched the suicide attack on the IAF base.

Another terrorist was identified as Hafiz Abu Bakar, son of Mohammed Fazil and resident of Gujranwala in Pakistan.

Umer Farooq was stated to be son of Abdul Samad of Madni Road, Mohalla Madisah, Shahdadpur in Sindh province of Pakistan, while the fourth terrorist Abdul Qayum was son of Mohamed Amin, a resident of Chachar, Tehsil Pano Akil, district Sukkur also in Sindh.

PTI