Pathankot attack: Court declares Masood Azhar, 3 aides proclaimed offenders

Members of the NIA team coming out from district court of SAS Nagar on Thursday. Jasbir Malhi

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) is planning to bring in officials from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as witnesses in the Pathankot airbase attack case in which the trial is set to begin on April 10. A special NIA court on Thursday declared the alleged attack mastermind and terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammad’s chief Masood Azhar and his aides, including his brother Abdul Rauf Asgar, Shahid Latif and Kashif Jan, as Proclaimed Offenders (POs). The court also directed the investigating agency to submit the list of all the prosecution witnesses in the court by then.

“We will submit the list of prosecution witnesses, which may also include some officials from FBI who helped us to investigate the case. They helped us find the locations of GPS systems used by the terrorists,” an NIA official present at the hearing today said requesting anonymity. At the hearing, the agency asked the court to initiate the trial under IPC section 299 (Culpable homicide-Whoever causes death by doing an act with the intention of causing death, or with the intention of causing such bodily injury as is likely to cause death, or with the knowledge that he is likely by such act to cause death).

The NIA assured the court it would submit the list of witnesses by April 10. The accused will be tried separately for their roles in the terror attack and “not appearing” in court for which they were declared POs today. A team of NIA led by its lawyers appeared in the court of special NIA judge Tarsem Mangla and apprised the court that they got the notices published in national dailies, which were part of declaring all the accused in the case as POs.

Before declaring any accused a PO, it is necessary to either give advertisements in the newspapers or paste the copies of the notices outside the residence of an accused. In this case, since all the accused are believed to be in Pakistan, the agency only got the notices published in the newspapers. The evidence relating to the case, including the guns and ammunition seized from the terrorists who were killed inside the airbase, will remain at the malkhana in Phase 8 police station.