Pathankot terror probe: Punjab police officer Salwinder Singh to undergo lie detector test, confirms MHA

The NIA, which is probing the Pathankot attack, had questioned Singh, who is allegedly frequently changing his statements, for the fourth straight day on Thursday.

New Delhi: To nail Punjab Police officer Salwinder Singh's lie in connection with the Pathankot terror attack probe, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on Friday gave a nod to the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to conduct Narco test on him next week.

The NIA, which has been probing the Pathankot attack, had questioned Singh, who is allegedly frequently changing his statements, for the fourth straight day yesterday.

Singh was quizzed by the NIA today for the fifth consecutive day, whose interrogators also questioned his cook and the caretaker of ‘Panj Peer Dargah’, which the official had claimed to have visited before he was kidnapped by the terrorists involved in the Pathankot attack.

The Gurdaspur SP’s cook Madan Gopal, who was also abducted with him and a jeweller friend of the officer, and Somraj, caretaker of Panj Peer Dargah in Punjab, were also questioned, the spokesperson said, adding they all may be confronted with each other to ascertain the veracity of their statements.

The shrine is located a few kilometres from Bamiyal, the village from where the terrorists were suspected to have infiltrated into India before mounting the attack.

Singh, shunted barely few days before the January one-two terror strike as Superintendent of Police (headquarters) of Gurdaspur and facing alleged charges of breach of discipline,
has in-principle given his consent for a polygraph test, the sources said, as per PTI.

The NIA will move an application before a designated court here tomorrow seeking permission for conducting a polygraph test on Singh.

Six terrorists had attacked the Pathankot base on the intervening night of January 1 and 2. They were killed in a counter-operation by Indian forces that lasted for about three days and also claimed the lives of seven security personnel.

Officials of the terror probe agency have also found similarities in the recent attack on the Pathankot Air Force station and a police station and some other targets in Dinanagar, both in Punjab, a Home Ministry spokesperson said.

Three heavily-armed militants in army fatigues, believed to have infiltrated from Pakistan, had on July 27, 2015, sprayed a moving bus with bullets and stormed a police station in Dinanagar, killing eight people, including a Superintendent of Police before being killed in a counteroffensive. The case is being probed by the Punjab Police.

India had earlier said that it will extend all help to a special team Pakistan proposes to send to Pathankot to investigate the terror attack on the IAF base.

India says that the six terrorists who attacked the Indian Air Force (IAF) station in Pathankot in Punjab on January 2 were Pakistanis and allied to the Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM). 

External affairs ministry spokesman Vikas Swarup welcomed Pakistan's announcement on Wednesday that JeM activists had been arrested and its offices sealed. India blames the group for the Pathankot incident.

The crackdown on the JeM was an "important and positive first step" in the move to bring to justice the Pathankot attack plotters, he said.

He had further said that India and Pakistan had agreed to reschedule the talks between their foreign secretaries which were to take place in Islamabad on Friday.

(With Agency inputs)