Pakistan to probe Indian airbase attack: minister

Police in Pakistan's Punjab province has registered case against unidentified persons about the attack on an Indian airbase last month, a provincial minister said on Friday.

Seven soldiers were killed when a group of armed men attacked the high-security Pathankot air base in Indian Punjab on Jan. 2.

Indian investigators had earlier stated a Pakistan-based group "Jaish-i-Mohammad" was involved in the attack and they had traced phone calls to substantiate their claims.

The FIR or First Information Report has been registered in a police station in the Pakistani city of Gujranwala, Law Minister of Punjab province Rana Sanaullah said.

"Registration of the case is a proof that Pakistan is serious to pursue the case with full commitment," Sanaullah told reporters in Lahore.

"The interrogators will confront all the suspects on the basis of the evidence," the minister said. He said India should not doubt Pakistan's commitment to fight terrorism.

Pakistan detained chief of "Jaish-i-Mohammad" Maulana Masood Azhar and several other militants days after the Indian authorities blamed the group for the attack. The government had also sealed some religious seminaries belonging to the group.

Azhar, who belongs to Bahawalpur, had been in the Indian custody in a Kashmir prison. He was freed in December 1999 in swap for passengers on a hijacked Indian Airlines Flight that had landed in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar during the Taliban rule of Afghanistan.

The case was registered at a time when Pakistan Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said that Islamabad plans to send an investigation team to India to discuss matters related to the case.

Registration of the case is seen as a major step by Pakistan to remove the grievances of India.

India had postponed official talks with Pakistan scheduled to be held in mid-January. Enditem