Pathankot attack mastermind gunned down in Pak’s Sialkot

NEW DELHI,

SHAHID Latif, a key aide of Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar and mastermind of the 2016 attack on the Indian Air Force base in Pathankot, and his brother were gunned down in a mosque in Pakistan’s Sialkot district on Wednesday, officials said. Three men who came on a motorcycle fired indiscriminately at 53-year-old Latif and his brother, Haris Hashim, as they were leaving the Noor Madina mosque in Daska town after pre-dawn prayers, officials in the know of developments said. Latif, who was accompanied by his heavily armed guards, and his brother were killed on the spot in the mosque complex. According to an ‘Associated Press’ report from Lahore, the gunmen pretended to be worshippers to enter the mosque complex.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack but local police chief Hassan Iqbal said it appeared that Latif was intentionally targeted. The police chief did not provide further details, the AP report said. Latif alias Bilal alias Noor Al Din, a designated terrorist under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, was the launching commander of the Jaish-e-Mohammed in Sailkot and had been involved in planning, facilitation and execution of terror attacks in India. The officials said that Latif had entered into Kashmir in 1993 from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir as a cadre of the banned Hakar-ul-Ansar terror group. However, he was arrested a year later and sent the Kot Balwal jail in Jammu.

It is believed that he was brainwashed further by Masood Azhar, who was also lodged in that jail till he was set free in 1999 in exchange for the passengers of IC-814, an Indian Airlines plane that was hijacked by terrorists and taken to Kandahar.

After spending 16 years in Indian jail, he was deported through the Attari-Wagah border in 2010 and is believed to have got in touch again with Azhar, who had by that time formed the Jaish-e-Mohammed terror group. “This is the biggest blow to JeM on Pakistan soil,” an official said. Latif, a resident of Aminabad in Punjab’s Gujranwala, was wanted by the National Investigation Agency (NIA). Seven IAF personnel were killed when four JeM terrorists sneaked into the Pathankot Air Force Station on January 2, 2016. The siege went on for three days.