Pathankot: NIA court issues arrest warrant against Jaish chief

A special court in Punjab's Mohali town on Friday issued an arrest warrant against Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) chief Masood Azhar and three other operatives of the banned Pakistan-based terror group in the Pathankot attack case, an NIA official said.

The non-bailable arrest warrant has been issued against Azhar, his brother Abdul Rauf and two other JeM operatives - Kashif Jan and Shahid Latif.

"In the Pathankot terror attack case, the honourable judge of special NIA court Mohali issued arrest warrants against the accused wanted in the case namely, Maulana Masood Azhar, Abdul Rauf, Kashif Jan and Shahid Latif," National Investigation Agency (NIA) spokesperson Sanjeev Kumar Singh said in New Delhi.

NIA is handling the Indian investigation of the January 2 terror attack at the Indian Air Force (IAF) base at Pathankot in which seven Indian security personnel were killed by suspected JeM militants. The NIA court is located in Punjab's Mohali town, 10 km from Chandigarh.

The NIA had recently shared evidence of the JeM's role in the Pathankot air base terror attack with the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) set up by Pakistan to probe links of the terror attack to people based in Pakistan.

The JIT had met top NIA officials in New Delhi and had travelled to Pathankot for a one-day investigation trip. The five-member JIT was shown a portion of the airbase where the security forces engaged the terrorists and was taken to other locations through which the terrorists had made their way towards the airbase.

The JeM and Azhar have been blamed for terror activities in India, including the December 2001 terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament in New Delhi.