IE10 & IE11 don't trigger touch events (e.g., touchstart). If you want to differentiate touches from clicks, you must use the pointer events API and the event object's pointerType property:

gistfile1.js

function onPointerDownHandler (event) {
  if (event.pointerType === 'touch') {
  	// Equivalent to a touchstart on MS Surface
  }
}

// For IE 10
element.addEventListener('MSPointerDown', onPointerDownHandler);

// For IE 11+
element.addEventListener('pointerdown', onPointerDownHandler);

Chrome team has seen the light on Pointer API https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/#!topic/blink-dev/ODWmcKNQl0I Safari and Firefox still dragging their feet