Par panel quizzes MHA top brass on repeated terror attacks

A Parliamentary panel today quizzed the top brass of Home Ministry on repeated attacks on security establishments in Jammu and Kashmir and Punjab and asked what steps were taken to prevent such brazen acts of terrorists.
The meeting of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs, headed by Congress leader and former Home Minister P Chidambaram, asked a team of top officials led by Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi the reasons for repeated terror attacks on security installations.
The MPs, cutting across party lines, cited the example of terror attacks at the brigade headquarters at Uri and Pathankot air base besides the recent attack at an army station in Nagrota, in which seven Army personnel, including two Major-rank officers, were killed, sources said.

The lawmakers also wanted to know what preventive actions have been taken by the government to check such attempts.
In his reply, the Union Home Secretary said the strike at the army camp in Nagrota was a terror attack carried out by terrorists belonging to Pakistan-based militant groups.
Mehrishi said the probe into the Nagrota attack has been handed over to NIA which will unravel the conspiracy hatched in Pakistan, sources said.

The Home Ministry has already handed over the probe into the Nagrota case to the NIA.
The probe agency has re-registered the case at its police station here and a team of officers of the NIA will reach Jammu shortly to visit the crime scene and commence the investigation.

It will also place the FIR before the NIA Special Court in Jammu.
NIA, which was formed in 2008 at the initiative of Chidambaram, functions as the country's central counter-terrorism law enforcement agency.