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Business News/ Politics / Policy/  NIA team may be allowed to visit Pakistan for Pathankot probe
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NIA team may be allowed to visit Pakistan for Pathankot probe

Sartaj Aziz, advisor to Pakistan PM, says all options open on allowing NIA team to visit Pakistan to follow up on its probe

Sartaj Aziz. Photo: ReutersPremium
Sartaj Aziz. Photo: Reuters

New Delhi: The foreign affairs adviser to Pakistan’s Prime Minister, Sartaj Aziz, has said the alleged Indian spy Kulbhushan Yadav, who was arrested from the troubled Balochistan province last month, was part of a much larger “network".

In an interview to CNN-News18 channel, Aziz also said all options were “open" on allowing India’s National Investigation Agency (NIA) team to visit Pakistan to follow up on its probe into the 2 January attack on India’s Pathankot airbase.

This is in almost seeming contradiction to what his country’s envoy Abdul Basit had told reporters in New Delhi on 7 April: that Pakistan was not likely to permit such a visit.

In his interview, Aziz said that consular access to the alleged Indian spy was denied because “it’s not the case of one individual. It is a network which is operating in Balochistan".

He said that several more people have been arrested and that consular access might “affect our investigating into this entire episode..."

“I don’t think there should be any surprise; we have been saying that even last year. In fact, my visit to India was cancelled last year to meet the NSA (national security advisor Ajit Doval). I said that India is blaming us for non-state actors acting across the border. In the case of India, it is the state actor which is operating in Balochistan... and Karachi and we had even shared some dossiers with the UN and the US. So I think in that sense we have now got more concrete evidence..." he said.

Yadav was allegedly apprehended by the Pakistani authorities last month. India had admitted that he is an Indian national but denied that he is in any way linked to the Indian government.

Pakistan accuses India of supporting violence in its troubled province of Balochistan. India, on its part, says Pakistan is supporting an Islamist insurgency in Kashmir, the trigger for three of the four wars between the two countries since 1947. New Delhi also blames Pakistan-based militant groups of carrying out terrorist attacks against India.

The 2 January attack on the Pathankot base has been blamed by India on the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed militant group.

In his interview, Aziz said all options are open to allowing an Indian investigative team to visit Pakistan to probe the attack “in case the evidence leads to some basis and reaches people (who) need to be investigated".

A team from Pakistan’s joint investigation team was in India at the end of March to gather information on the Pathankot attack and India’s National Investigation Agency chief Sharad Kumar had said on 1 April that India was looking forward to sending its investigators to Pakistan.

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Published: 19 Apr 2016, 08:01 AM IST
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