Pakistan, Islamabad: India has agreed to receive Pakistani investigators for probing its allegations about the involvement of some groups or people from Pakistan in last month’s Pathankot airbase attack,  said Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan. Speaking at a news conference at the Punjab House here on Yesterday, he said the only condition India had made was that it should be informed at least five days before the visit of the Pakistani investigators.

Chaudhry Nisar provided the information in reply to a question about the registration of an FIR in Gujranwala over the Pathankot incident. He said,  “Our SIT (Special Investigation Team) will visit India in the next few days. India has already been informed through a letter by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs about the SIT visit. India has agreed to it”. Chaudhry Nisar did not answer when asked if India had also agreed to allow the Pakistani investigators to visit the Pathankot airbase as there were reports that New Delhi would not let them enter the base.

He was of the opinion that the registration of the FIR was necessary to fulfil certain legal requirements to hold investigations and verification of the information shared by India with Pakistan. He said the FIR was also needed to acquire data from service providers of those telephone numbers through which India claimed the attackers had talked to someone in Pakistan from inside the Pathankot airbase. “These (phone) numbers have been made part of the FIR,” he said. “Further investigations will be held on the basis of this FIR.”

The minister recalled that an FIR had also been lodged in Pakistan following the 2008 Mumbai attacks. He said some arrests had been made in connection with Pathankot incident, but investigations were still on to establish their links with the telephone numbers or with those people whose names had been provided by India. He refused to give details about those arrested, saying it was a “sensitive matter”. He urged the media to avoid speculations on the matter.