New Delhi: Captured Pakistani militant Mohammad Naved will be questioned by top police officers on Thursday in the presence of National Investigation Agency sleuths, reports said.
A news channel reported quoting sources that a team from the central agency will head to Udhampur to join the interrogation. The NIA will also take a call on bringing him to Delhi.
Naved was questioned all night on who his handlers in Pakistan were and on the route he took to cross over to India.
The militant from Bahawalpur, was captured on Wednesday, shortly after he and accomplice Noman alias Momin killed two BSF men and wounded nearly a dozen soldiers by ambushing a convoy on the Jammu-Srinagar national highway in Udhampur.
Noman was killed in retaliatory fire by BSF personnel. He was from Bahawalpur in Pakistan.
Making a statement in the Rajya Sabha on the Udhampur attack, home minister Rajnath Singh said the arrested militant was being questioned for more details on the conspiracy.
He said the militant has revealed that his name is Mohammed Naved alias Usman.
The home minister said the government salutes the jawans who took on the two Pakistani militants and that they will be conferred gallantry awards.
Singh also requested the Jammu and Kashmir government to reward the villagers who risked their lives to help capture Naved.
Naved has told interrogators he is from Faislabad in Pakistan. A resident of Ghulam Mustafabad in Faisalabad, the militant believed to be in his early 20s has two brothers and one sister.
Initially, Naved said he was in his early 20s but later changed his age to 16. “He has been changing statements. First he identified himself as Qasim and later as Usman Khan,” an officer said.
This has been a tactic of the banned Lashkar group, sending youngsters to Jammu and Kashmir with the direction that in case they were caught, they should claim to be below 18 years so that they are tried as juveniles.
Only if it is concluded that the accused is above 18, he can be tried by normal courts, otherwise he will have to be tried by the Juvenile Justice Board. No court can try a juvenile as an adult even if the person has committed a murder or rape.
In a "confession" caught on camera soon after he was captured, Naved said he started for India 12 days ago.
“I am from Pakistan and my partner was killed in the firing but I escaped. Had I been killed, it would have been Allah’s doing. There is fun in doing this … I came to kill Hindus,” said the suspected Lashkar-e-Taiba operative wearing a dark blue shirt and brown trousers.
As he was brought down from the mountainous village bound by ropes, Naved looked hassled but smiled when he answered questions from journalists.