Pathankot Probe: NIA Names JeM's Masood, 4 Others in Chargesheet

New Delhi: The NIA filed a chargesheet in the Pathankot airbase terror attack case at a Mohali court on Monday.

The agency has named Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar along with his brother Rauf Asghar as accused in its chargesheet.

Reacting to the news Sharad Kumar, DG NIA said, “Investigation was extensive and done in a professional manner by our teams. We have collected digital, oral and documentary evidence which is irrefutable and nails the role of JeM terrorists, it's handlers and chief Maulana Masood Azhar."

The others named in the chargesheet are: Shahid Latif (resident of Mor Aminabad Gujrawala) and Kashif Jaan, a resident of Charsada Pakistan. The chargesheet claimed that Jaan was the main handler behind the attack.

Immediately after the Pathankot attack on January 2, Asghar had hosted a video message claiming the responsibility for the terror strike and glorified the role of his brother Azhar, who was released in exchange for passengers of hijacked Indian Airlines plane IC-814 in 1999.

India will be using the charge sheet of NIA at various international forays to highlight the role of Azhar in the case relating to the Pathankot terror attack.

Earlier, the Home Ministry reportedly had given sanction to NIA to file the charge sheet against Azhar, Jaan and Shaid Latif, under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA).

The four terrorists, after entering into India from Bamiyal area of Gurdaspur, had carried out the strike at the Pathankot IAF base killing eight people including seven personnel of IAF and NSG.

According to NIA, the terrorists, who were killed after two days of gunfight, were identified as Nasir Hussain, Hafiz Abu Bakar, Umar Farooq and Abdul Qayum and they were residents of Vehari (Punjab), Gujranwala (Punjab), Sanghar (Sindh) and Sukkur (Sindh) in Pakistan respectively.

However, the Pakistani team, upon their return, claimed that India neither shared much of evidence nor allowed it to interrogate the security personnel involved in dealing with the attack.