Secret Jaish-e-Muhammad training camp involved in Pathankot airbase attack traced

New Delhi: The Indian intelligence officials have reportedly traced a secret facility which was used to train the Jaish-e-Muhammad militants who carried out the assault on the Indian Air Force base in Pathankot recently, a report said on Tuesday.

However, under growing pressure from India, Pakistan’s notorious spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) has ordered the shifting of facility used to train the JeM militants who were involved in the Pathankot attack case, a report carried by the Indian Express said.

According to the report, the instructions have come from Pakistan's Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence to shift JeM's base, located in the shadows of Fort Maujgarh, which is believed by the Indian intelligence to have been used to train élite Jaish units for special missions.

As per intelligence sources, the training facility has now been housed at the Jaish-e-Muhammad’s main seminary at Bahawalpur, 62 km away, but without their weapons.

The western complex, walled off by high earthworks, includes several barrack-like buildings, small patches of farmland, and a modern, rectangular water reservoir. The southern complex, built in a sandy depression, also has a main building protected by a high perimeter wall, and houses a similar water reservoir, says report.

Fort Maujgarh is believed by Indian intelligence to have been used for tactical training in cross-border infiltration.

Indian intelligence officials believe that large parts of the JeM militants' hands-on training appears to have taken place in a sprawling patch of desert west of an agrarian settlement known as Chak 48, well to the west of Maujgarh along a road running along the desert parallel to the India-Pakistan desert.

The region is believed by the Pakistani counter-intelligence to be less vulnerable to Indian espionage than Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

Fort Maujgarh is the second major desert facility known to have been used by the Jaish-e-Muhammad. In 2009, Indian intelligence detected that the organisation was training personnel at Fort Abbas, 72 km as the crow flies from Fort Maujgarh.

The base’s location set off alarms in New Delhi, since it is just a short distance from Faqirwali, on the India-Pakistan border.

In addition, Fort Abbas houses an airstrip which led to fears in the intelligence community that the Jaish may have been planning to use it to train personnel in handling remote-controlled aircraft as airborne improvised explosive devices.