+92 3000597212: Phone number of Pathankot attacker’s ‘ustaad’ in Pakistan

PATHANKOT: If the Nawaz Sharif government has any doubt that the six men who attacked Pathankot airbase were Pakistani citizens, it might want to pull out the call details of two numbers - 92-3017775253 and +92 3000597212.
Both are Pakistani numbers to which calls were made by the attackers after they entered India. The first number most probably belongs to the mother of one of the attackers while the second belongs to one of the handlers of the terrorists. In both cases, they used the phones of their victims, which the Indian investigators are now using to build a case and ascertain the identities of the six men.
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Intelligence Bureau officials told TOI that the terrorists called their handler “ustaad” while describing their positions inside Punjab after crossing over from Pakistan.
One of the first calls made by the terrorists to +92 3000597212 was at 9.12 pm on December 31 from the phone of taxi driver Ikaagar Singh, whom they’d killed. The terrorist repeatedly referred to the man on the other side as “ustaad”. In one of the calls, ustaad is heard screaming at the terrorists for the delay in reaching the airbase.
Ikaagar's phone was used to make only one outgoing call while four incoming calls were received from the same number. A senior central agency officer, who is analysing the calls, confirmed that Ikaagar did not speak to any Pakistani number. “On this number, in fact, the terrorist is heard telling the attacker to kill the taxi driver,” the official told TOI.
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Detailed investigation by intelligence officials show that the terrorists used Ikaagar’s phone to give a ‘missed call’ to their handlers in Pakistan to tell them how they could be reached. A standard trick by terrorists since they don’t generate any trail, “missed calls’’ have been a big source of worry for law-enforcement agencies.
Analysis of the bulk data -- “dump” in technical parlance -- stored at the gateways through which calls from Pakistan came, shows that the handlers, armed with the knowledge where to reach their wards, were soon barking their instructions.
Before the “missed” call, Ikaagar had made only one call to his cousin, Harpreet Kaur. His body was found about two km from Kolian village where his abandoned Innova was found.
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The last call was made by one of the terrorists to his mother in the middle of attack from the mobile phone of jeweller Rajesh Verma. The jeweller was carjacked with Punjab SP Salwinder Singh. The call was made to +92-3017775253 at around 8.30 am, five hours after the attack was launched on the airbase. As he broke news of his presence inside India to his shocked mother, the woman wept and hoped that God would keep him safe.
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