india

Updated: Aug 10, 2015 09:04 IST

The US has confirmed to India that a night vision device allegedly used by terrorists during an attack in Punjab’s Gurdaspur district was lost by its troops in Afghanistan, linking the trail of the deadly July 27 strike to the war-torn country, sources told HT.

The equipment was found near a stretch of the Amritsar-Pathankot railway track to which five improvised explosive devices (IEDs) were tied to derail a passing train. The IEDs didn’t go off as intended, saving lives of dozens of travellers.

"We have got confirmation from the US that the night vision device belonged to its troops deployed in Afghanistan and it was lost there. Now formal details have been sought by providing all identification markings of the device to the US," said a senior government official requesting anonymity.

Though available commercially, the device was marked as US government property which led India to approach authorities there, sources said.



Three heavily-armed men dressed in battle fatigues left seven people, including a senior police officer, dead in Dinanagar town of the Punjab border district before they were killed following a day-long gun battle that ended the siege of the local police station.

Investigators have come to the conclusion that the attackers came from Pakistan and used the night vision device to navigate through a riverine area to reach Dinanagar.

“With the US confirming that it is indeed a device its troops lost in Afghanistan, now the question remains as to how it reached the hands of the Gurdaspur attackers. Was it the Taliban or the ISI that provided the equipment to the Gurdaspur fidayeen who are suspected to be from the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT)?” said the official. “Further examination of the device by the US may shed light on the path it traversed to reach India.”



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