Punjab cop who was abducted by Pathankot terrorists to undergo lie test

Senior Punjab Police officer Salwinder Singh, who is being questioned by NIA in connection with Pathankot terror attack probe, will undergo a lie detector test next week after he gave consent for it.

Home ministry sources said Singh, who is at present posted as Assistant Commandant with 75th battalion of Punjab Armed Police, was questioned for the fifth consecutive day on Friday and confronted with his cook Madan Gopal and caretaker of Dargah Somraj.

Singh, shunted barely few days before the January 1-2 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.

The NIA, which has been probing the case, will move an application before a designated court in New Delhi on Saturday seeking permission for conducting a polygraph test on Singh, who has been allegedly changing his statements quite frequently, the sources said.

Singh's car was hijacked by terrorists before they entered the Pathankot IAF base on the intervening night of December 31 and January one.

The sources said bringing them face-to-face was necessary because of "conflicting statements". While Singh had told the Punjab police he frequently visited the shrine, Somraj claimed he had seen him for the first time hours before terrorists launched the brazen attack on the Pathankot facility.

Singh had said he was kidnapped by the terrorists after his visit to the shrine and later let off as they did not know his identity.

Six terrorists were killed in a counter-operation by Indian forces that lasted for about three days and also claimed the lives of seven security personnel.

In the meantime, the binocular recovered from the site of encounter is a stolen property of the US army. The serial number will be shared with the US to ascertain where the equipment was lost, the sources said.

In the meantime, CFSL has been asked to recover the serial number of AK-47 rifles and revolvers recovered by the NIA after 80-hour long terror strike at the Pathankot IAF base so that the same could be shared with the company to ascertain the country from where it was shipped, the sources said.

They said NIA has got a lot of material including clothing, shoes and other material linking them to Pakistan.

The NIA was also studying details of the terror strike at Dina Nagar in Gurdaspur district on July 27 last year after investigators of the central terror probe agency found similarities with the attack on Pathankot air base.

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

Superintendent of Police Salwinder Singh. Photograph: Subhav Shukla/PTI Photo