NIA to seek RCN for 2 Jaish men

Having secured a red corner notice against Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Maulana Masood Azhar and his brother Abdul Rauf in connection with the attack on the Pathankot Air Force base, the National Investigation Agency will now expedite the process for getting a similar alert issued against another two top Jaish commanders, Kashif Jan and Shahid Latif. While the notice against Azhar and Rauf were issued last month, the NIA said the request for Kashif Jan and Shahid Latif were still pending which too needs to be cleared at the earliest as both of the duo were the handlers of the terrorist who had infiltrated into India through Punjab’s Bamiyal sector and eventually attacked the Air Force base. The NIA will soon approach the Interpol to issue the notices against Kashif Jan and Shahid Latif. Investigations into the Pathankot attack, which is being probed by the NIA, have been hampered as Pakistan has so far refused to provide the voice samples of the four top terrorists of Jaish. In fact, Pakistan till now has not given permission to the NIA team to visit in connection with further investigations.

A joint investigation team from Pakistan had visited India in March for investigations into the case but have not provided any dates yet for the NIA to visit their country. “We are ascertaining Pakistan’s response. Details will be worked out subsequently,” a government source said while reacting to reports of NIA seeking to visit Pakistan.

“Once we obtain the red corner notices against all the four terrorists we can pressurise Pakistan at the international forum to take action against them. There is no doubt that these men are in Pakistan and there is enough evidence to suggest about the involvement in the Pathankot attack. The Interpol will not issue a red corner notice otherwise,” a senior home ministry official said.

At the diplomatic level, India has already lodged protest with Pakistan about the slow pace of investigations into the Pathankot case and Masood Azhar being given a free hand to carryout anti-India activities. India had also moved the UN recently to label Azhar as a global terrorist but the move was blocked by China citing technical reasons.