GPS, other access of Gurdaspur attackers had foreign origin, says the dossier

NEW DELHI: A technical analysis of GPS devices used by the Gurdaspur attackers has thrown up coordinates in Sargodha, Pakistan, on July 21, with the same location also appearing as an undated entry. Interestingly, experts have stumbled upon origins of the GPS sets in Taiwan or US, indicating that this is where they may have been picked up, and found that they were possibly located in the UK at some point of time.

According to a dossier prepared by India on the recent terror attacks launched from Pakistan, one of the GPS sets has coordinates of 12 places fed on it on July 21, indicating the route taken by the attackers from Ravi river to the place where they planted the IEDs on the railway track and further to Dinanagar police station.

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"It is possible that certain locations could have been observed by the terrorists on the display screen without getting recorded in the equipment menu," said the report of the experts' team which analysed the GPS device.

As for the second GPS set, experts confirmed that it shows "presence inside Pakistan". As per the analysis, coordinates (32.161639 N, 72:42E) on July 21 were observed near Sargodha near Canal Road, next to main Shahpur-Sahiwal road.

The probe so far has established that the 3 Pakistan-based terrorists had infiltrated into Gurdaspur, Punjab by crossing river Ravi from Tash, near Mastgarh village.

In a further confirmation of Pakistani origins of the attackers, they wore shoes of 'Cheetah' brand, which is a well-selling brand in Pakistan. Also, the Duracell batteries used in IEDs planted on the railway line in Gurdaspur had markings different from Duracell batteries sold in India.

The dossier meant for sharing at the now-cancelled NSA-level talks also recorded the fact that the glove found on one of the terrorists during the post-mortem bore a "Made in Pakistan" tag.

All the arms and ammunition recovered from the terrorists have been found to be of foreign origin. The grenades were not made in India and the forensic analysis of the "chiseled" numbers and makes of the AK-56 rifles used by the terrorists found their design consistent with Type 56-1 assault rifle of Chinese origin.

The analysis of the recovered ammunition by forensic laboratory retraced the origins of some cartridges to China, Russia, Ukraine and Czechoslovakia.

Even the Disposal Rocket Launcher carried Yugoslavian/Czech markings.

As for the night vision device found with the attackers, a physical examination by the forensic experts revealed the inscription ' US government property' on the top and the number '032008 80063 - A3256364' on the crevice of neck of the eye piece.

Seven people, including an SP-level officer, were killed when three terrorists infiltrated from Pakistan and attacked random targets in Gurdaspur, before storming the Dinanagar police station. All three terrorists were killed in the encounter that followed.