The officials said the team interrogated Jaish-e-Mohammad
...literally
Army of Mohammad, a Pak-based Deobandi terror group founded by Maulana Masood Azhar in 2000, after he split with the Harkat-ul-Mujaheddin. In 2002 the government of Pervez Musharraf
bannedthe group, which changed its name to Khaddam ul-Islam and continued doing what it had been doing before without missing a beat...
(JeM) chief Maulana Masood Azhar
...One of the major players in Pak terrorism. In early 1994, India incarcerated him for his terrorist activities. In 1995, foreign tourists were kidnapped in Jammu and Kashmir. The kidnappers included the release of Masood Azhar among their demands. One of the hostages managed to escape but the rest were eventually killed. In 1999, he was freed by the Indian government in exchange for passengers on hijacked Indian Airlines Flight 814 that had been diverted to Kandahar. The hijackers were led by Masood Azhar's brother, Ibrahim Athar. Once he was handed over to the hijackers, they fled to Pak territory despite the fact that Islamabad had earlier stated that any of the hijackers would be jugged at the border. The Pak government had also previously indicated that Azhar would be allowed to return home since he did not face any charges there. Shortly after his release, he made a public address to an estimated 10,000 people in Karachi, firing up the rubes against America and India...and his associates and found no evidence linking him with the Jan 2 attack on the Pathankot airbase in northern India that killed seven Indian military personnel.
"We searched their homes, seminaries, hideouts and also examined their call records for past three months and found nothing dubious," a security official with links to the investigating team said.
The raid on the airbase stalled efforts to revive talks between the neighbours after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi made an unscheduled visit to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif
... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf...
in December.
A front man for India's foreign ministry declined to comment on reports of the special investigation team's findings.
In January, authorities detained Maulana Azhar and several members of JeM, sealed offices belonging to the outfit, and shut down several religious schools run by the group.
The security officials said on Monday that Maulana Azhar remained in jug, but did not say whether authorities were considering his release.
The investigating team has not ruled out the possibility that other members of JeM may have been involved, the officials said.
It also continued to look into groups affiliated with the United Jihad Council, an alliance of pro-Pakistain bully boy groups based in Azad Kashmire that grabbed credit for the assault in Pathankot.
Jaish-e-Mohammad did not claim responsibility for the attack, but praised it in a statement released a few days after the incident.