Gurdaspur attack: Pathankot was entry point for terrorists, says police

GURDASPUR: Punjab police on Wednesday identified BSF border outpost at Bamiyal in Pathankot, neighbouring Gurdaspur, as the exact location from where the three terrorists entered into Gurdaspur from Pakistan to wreak havoc in Dinanagar town on Monday. The officials also suspect that village Mastgarh was their first stay on July 25, two days before the attack.

This has also been corroborated by 12 different pre-fed locations found in the GPS devices. TOI has accessed the preliminary analytical report, based on these GPS locations, prepared by from National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO).

Bamiyal is barely 40 km from Dinanagar. It has a population of barely 700, mostly defence personnel. The police have only a chowki there. Mastgarh is a hamlet of less than 100 people.

"An 800-metre breach at Bamiyal has been found by both Intelligence Bureau and Gurdaspur police sleuths. BSF was informed on Tuesday , after which their officials from Delhi landed here," said a top Punjab cop.

BSF director general D K Pathak visited the border posts of Paharipur, Bamiyal and Jaitpur on Wednesday .Sources said he asked his men to investigate the breach. He also visited various forward border outposts.However, BSF inspector gen eral, Punjab frontier Anil Paliwal said that the BSF had not found any breach. Punjab official however said that the breach had existed at Bamiyal for a year and was further damaged by last week's heavy rains, helping the jihadis to enter into India with their night vision devices.

NSA-level talks at August-end?

India is looking to propose a date to Pakistan for NSA-level talks towards the end of the third week of August, government sources in New Delhi said. Pakistan NSA Sartaj Aziz will travel to India for the dialogue which could mark a resumption of engagement between the two countries, even if not the composite dialogue process.

The government believes that it should go ahead with the NSA talks as it is meant to address the issue of terrorism. India has maintained since the Mumbai attacks that for any dialogue to take place between the two countries, Pakistan must address the issue of terrorism.

NSA Ajit Doval would not like to be seen as backing away from a dialogue on terrorism even though Pakistan is likely to use it to raise the issue of India's alleged role in encouraging insurgency in Baluchistan.