Pathankot attack kingpin killed outside Pakistan mosque

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, October 11

Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terrorist Shahid Latif, the mastermind of the attack on the Indian Air Force (IAF) base in Pathankot in 2016, and his brother were gunned down by unidentified assailants outside a mosque in Pakistan’s Sialkot district on Wednesday, officials said.

The officials said the incident occurred outside the Noor Madina mosque in Daska town in the early hours of Wednesday when Latif was coming out after prayers.

Three motorcycle-borne men fired indiscriminately killing 53-year-old Latif and his brother, identified as Haris Hashim, on the spot and injuring another person, they 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 Sialkot and had been involved in planning, facilitation and execution of terror attacks in India.

Latif had entered Kashmir valley from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir in 1993 as a cadre of the banned Harkat-ul-Ansar terror group. However, he was arrested a year later and sent to the Kot Bhalwal jail in Jammu.

In the jail, he met Masood Azhar, who radicalised him further. Azhar 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, Afghanistan. After spending 16 years in the 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 JeM terror group.

“This is a big blow to the JeM on Pakistan soil,” an official said. Latif, a resident of Aminabad in Punjab’s Gujranwala, was wanted by the NIA.

Masood Azhar’s aide

• After his arrest in 1994, Shahid Latif was lodged in Jammu jail
• Radicalised by Masood in jail
• Latif was deported in 2010
• Designated terrorist under UAPA

2016 IAF base attack

• Seven security personnel were killed when four JeM terrorists sneaked into the Pathankot Air Force Station on January 2, 2016.

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