Pathankot, January 11: Following increasing pressure to nail the perpetrators of the terror attack on Air Force Base in Pathankot, the National Investigative Agency (NIA) is likely to probe the role of insiders in smuggling arms and ammunition of the terrorists inside the base. A Times of India report suggested that the agency is pulling all plugs in the investigation and probing the involvement of insiders in the attack, since the preliminary probe suggested that some of the terrorists were present in the base, much before the attack began.
A senior NIA official told TOI on Sunday, “Everything will be probed”, without elaborating further on the issue. The reason behind the belief of an insider’s involvement is that a very heavy cache of arms was found with the terrorists that were neutralised. Also, as many as 45 explosions were heard from the base, much after the last terrorist was said to have been felled by the Army men. ”This points to how heavily armed the terrorists were and the huge amount of explosives that were left at the encounter site even after their death,” a senior officer was quoted as saying by TOI.
The terrorists were carrying enough arms to engage a professional Army for more than 60 hours, which is odd since they should have ideally been travelling light, especially as they had to cross the border. Also, merely six terrorists could not have transported so much ammunition. The NIA has turned its eyes not just on the smugglers operating from Punjab, but also serving personnel and the people housed inside the base, for possibilities of a collusion between the insider and the Jais terrorists, reported TOI.
