Pakistan team's access to be limited at Pathankot airbase

Authorities at Pathankot airbase in Punjab will take the visiting Pakistan probe team only to specific and limited areas within the Air Force Station (AFS) when it arrives here on Tuesday.

The Pakistan Joint Investigation Team's members will be kept away from the AFS' technical area and shown only those areas where security forces engaged the Pakistani terrorists in the first week of January.

Informed defence sources here said the team members could also be shown the bodies of the killed terrorists kept in a government mortuary in the town.

Officials of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) will accompany the JIT members.

The JIT will not get to interact with IAF or other defence and security officials and personnel involved in the 80-hour counter-operation by security forces against the terrorists who attacked the airbase in the early hours of January 2.

Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar said on Monday in Panaji (Goa) that the Pakistani team would not have access to the operational area of the airbase, but only the isolated "crime scene", which has been completely barricaded and fenced.

All the terrorists and seven security personnel were killed at the base.

The January attack on the IAF base was the second one by suspected Pakistani terrorists. A group of three Pakistani terrorists had attacked Dinanagar town in adjoining Gurdaspur district on July 27 last year, leaving seven people dead.