The police station which was attacked by terrorists in Gurdaspur. (Agence France-Presse)
India has approached the US to help identify the Night Vision Device (NVD) used by the three terrorists who carried out the Gurdaspur attack even as investigators did not rule out the possibility of a reconnaissance of target areas being carried out.
Besides the NVD, a request has also been routed through Union Home Ministry seeking details of Global Positioning System (GPS), used by terrorists in reaching the police station at Dina Nagar where they were engaged by Punjab Police. The manufacturer of the device is based in the US, official sources said today.
The NVD bearing a marking that it belongs to the US government was recovered from the terrorists, the sources said, adding it was used as a telescope with the assault rifle to help them in identifying the target in dead of the night.
Informally, the FBI has assured Indian investigators that all assistance will be provided in this regard and even indicated that the NVD could have been snatched from allied troops fighting war in Afghanistan, the sources said.
For a closer cooperation on terror-related matters, India and the US have appointed personnel from their respective security agencies as part of the diplomatic staff at each other's Embassies.
The Indian investigators also sought details about the coordinates of GPS that was seized from the terrorists. It could help the probe agency to find out where the GPS was used initially or the country to where it was exported.
The GPS is generally used by travellers on trekking or army personnel in unfamiliar terrain. It connects a customer to a satellite and helps the traveller know the way to the destination.
Three terrorists, believed to be of Lashker-e-Taiba terror group, had sneaked in from Ravi river at the Punjab border on intervening night of July 26 and 27 and attacked a police station in Dina Nagar. Seven people including a Superintendent of Police were killed by the terrorists before they were neutralised by Punjab Police.
In the meantime, security agencies were looking into a possibility that the terrorists had been briefed in advance about the targets and someone could have possibly infiltrated and carried out a reconnaissance, the sources said.
The 'way points' marked in the GPS also showed Gurdaspur Civil Lines area as one of the targets of terrorists as it is a posh area with many senior officials staying there besides housing an office unit of the Army.
This could be possible only because of pre-fed information from someone who may have been tasked to do so, the sources said and did not rule out the possibility of the flourishing drug mafia being involved in the process.