Govt. 'naive' in believing Pak would accept its role: Congress on JIT report

With Pakistan's JIT claiming that India used the Pathankot attack as part of its 'vicious propaganda' against Islamabad, the Congress Party on Tuesday said that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Government at the Centre was 'naive' in believing that the Islamic republic would accept its role in terrorist activities in India.

Congress leader Manish Tewari told ANI that the only export from Pakistan to South Asia in the last four decades has been 'terrorism'.

"If the Indian Government expected the Pakistan authorities to admit that their deep state- the ISI- and the non-state actors, which they have promoted, were responsible for the Pathankot attack then there were being completely naive. Pakistan is a very deeply entrenched soft terrorist state," Tewari said.

"And if the immature imbecile mandarins sitting in the highest echelons of Delhi had thought that the Pakistan would acknowledge its involvement, then they living in a cuckoo land," he added.

Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi, echoing similar sentiments, dubbed the government's decision to invite Pakistan JIT as 'silly and unwarranted', adding that such a move had elevated the 'perpetrator to the level of an investigator'.

"The Pathankot attack was dastardly, but the government's absolutely needless knee jerk action of inviting Pakistani team was absolutely suicidal. It was self defeating and unprecedented. It amounts to calling the perpetrators as inspectors, it elevates the accused to the level of investigators. This JIT has debunked the government of India and lowered its credibility," Singhvi told ANI.

With Pakistan's Joint Investigation Team (JIT) probing the Pathankot attack, set to table the report to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, sections of the Pakistan media have claimed that the report accuses India of using the attack as part of its 'vicious propaganda' against Islamabad.

Sources told Pakistan Today that the JIT has slammed India over its claims of Pakistani hand in the attack, saying that New Delhi continues to expand its propaganda "without having any solid evidence to back the claim".

The report also claims that the Indian Government did not cooperate with the JIT and instead made efforts to hinder the probe by the Pakistani team.

On Friday, the JIT returned to Pakistan after their five-day visit to India during which all evidence pertaining to the January 2016 attack was shared with them, including the DNA of four terrorists, their identities as well as call records showing involvement of Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM).

The JIT had on Thursday examined 13 witnesses, including former Gurdaspur Superintendent of Police Salwinder Singh.

Pakistani terrorists attacked the Pathankot Air Force Station in January this year, in which four attackers and two security forces personnel were killed in the gun battle, with an additional security force member dying from injuries hours later.