Punjab terror attack: GPS data shows two routes of slain terrorists from Pakistan

TNN

New Delhi, 30 Jul 2015: Analysis of data from two GPS sets recovered from the Punjab attackers has actually thrown up two routes that the terrorists were supposed to take to reach Dinanagar in Gurdaspur. While both originate from Pakistan, they indicate different points of entry into India through the Punjab border. Both the routes, however, merge a few kilometres before Dinanagar. 

 

Border Security Force (BSF), National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO) and other intelligence agencies are now saddled with the difficult task of ascertaining which route the terrorists actually took to reach Dinanagar. 

 

Sources said the two GPS sets were fed with two different routes on July 21 at Sargodha near Faisalabad. One of the GPS sets shows a route originating from Mastgarh in Pakistan’s Gujrat near Jammu border and then crossing the Jammu-Punjab-Pakistan tri-junction to enter Pathankot after crossing a rivulet merging into Ravi river. It then moves southwards to Dinanagar. 

 

Another route shows Malowal in Pakistan’s Gujrat as the starting point and then shows Dorangla, 170 km south of Malowal, in India’s Punjab. The next marked place is the same as the first GPS set. Going by this route, agencies believe that entry could have been made through Narowal in Pakistan. Here too the terrorists are suspected to have crossed a tributary of Ravi to enter India. 

 

Curiously, the two entry points mentioned in the two sets are 40 km apart. It is important to ascertain the gap exploited by the terrorists so that a pattern of infiltration is established and the gaps plugged accordingly. 

 

This is the first time that functional GPS sets have been recovered from slain terrorists in recent history and thus confirm breach on the Punjab border. In 2013, a similar GPS set was recovered from terrorists who allegedly crossed the Jammu border and launched an attack in Samba. This set, however, was damaged by a bullet and data could not be retrieved. BSF, which manned the Jammu border, had then denied that infiltration had taken place through the Jammu border. 

 

BSF DG DK Pathak on Wednesday camped in Punjab surveying the Indo-Pak border to assess its vulnerability to infiltration as also to find out where the terrorists may have sneaked in from. BSF sources, however, said even after a thorough inspection of the border based on GPS coordinates, there were no tell-tale signs of infiltration anywhere along Ravi. 

 

Agencies are now scanning call intercepts and satellite imagery to reach a conclusion on the route the three terrorists may have actually taken to reach Dinanagar.