New Delhi: Pakistan is once again in the state of denial. This time, the provincial government has refused to accept the dead bodies of 4 JeM linked militants who were killed by Indian security forces during gunbattle at the frontier Pathankot IAF base.
According a report in Times of India, the Indian side on Wednesday bury the 4 terrorists at an undisclosed location in keeping with Islamic rituals. The decision was taken after Islamabad washed its hands despite irrefutable proof that they had been sent by JeM to launch attacks on Indian soil.
Initially, Pakistan had acknowledged that all four were its nationals. But when New Delhi asked Islamabad to take possession of the bodies of the 4 militants and provided evidence on their nationality including intercepts, Islamabad disowned them as unverifiable.
In the documents submitted to Pakistan, Indian had identified all the 4 militants as Nasir, Abu Bakar, Farooq and Qayum. While Nasir and Bakar were resident of Vehari and Gujranwala of Punjab province, Farooq and Qayum were resident of Sanghar and Sukkur of Sindh.
For the last more than 4 months the corpses had been lying at the Pathankot mortuary forcing the Civil Surgeon to write to his seniors many times requesting them to give permission to take them out.
This is not the first instance where Pakistan refused to own up its nationals who it has often called 'strategic assets'. Before this, Islamabad had disowned Ajmal Kasab, the lone 26/11 attacker captured alive and hanged 3 years ago, as well though every piece of evidence pointed to the fact that he was a Pakistani.
7 security personnel were killed and several others injured when Pakistani terrorists owing allegiance to Pakistan-based JeM, attacked the Pathankot Air Force base after breaching the border on January 2.
