ALashkar-e-Taiba terrorist, who was close to 26/11 Mastermind Hafiz Saeed, was gunned down by an unidentified man in Pakistan’s Karachi. Mufti Qaiser Farooq was one of the first members of the terror outfit.
Mufti Qaiser Farooq’s killing is very similar to the murder of a cleric in Pakistan with links to terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba earlier this month. Maulana Ziaur Rahman was gunned down by two motorcycle-borne gunmen while he was on his daily evening stroll in Karachi.
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Rattled Pakistani agencies are working overtime to project that both Lashkar operative, Zia ur Rehman and Mufti Qaiser as religious clerics, who had nothing to do Hafiz Sayed and his terror outfit.
Earlier, another asset of ISI – Paramjit Singh Panjwar, chief of Khalistan Commando Force.
In February this year, terror outfit Hizbul Mujahideen received a setback when its launching commander and close aide of Syed Salahuddin launching was killed in Rawalpindi in Pakistan. Bashr Peer was standing outside shop when unknown assailants struck in heart of ISI Hq and military garrison town, firing from close range, killing Peer on the spot.
The killings has unsettled Pakistan’s military-industrial complex and has forced the ISI, Pakistan’s spy agency to put around a dozen of its “assets” in “safe houses”.
The precaution – that of keeping the assets safe – was also deemed even more necessary because of the killings of two other Laskhar operatives – Abu Qasim Kashmiri in Rawalkot and Qari Khurram Shehzad in Nazimabad – in September, TOI reported quoting its sources.
Rahman’s killing was reported on September 12. Local police had found 11 cartridges, some of those from 9mm calibre. He was working as an administrator of a seminary named Jamia Abu Bakar, which was a front for his terrorist activities, according to TOI report.
Pakistan police described the murder as a ‘terrorist attack’ indicating the role of home grown “militants”. A gang rivalry is also being probed as one of the possible motives for the murder.Rahman’s assassination follows a series of attacks on religious preachers in Karachi, all of them associated with terror groups through ISI and involved in radicalising youths and bringing them to the launch pad from where they are unleashed on India.
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Among those who have been killed include Khalid Raza, formerly associated with Al-Badar Mujahideen.
In March, an IC-814 Indian Airlines hijacker was shot dead in Karachi. The Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorist was shot twice in the head by unidentified gunmen from point-blank range. The series of killings have left Pakistan’s law enforcement agencies and ISI rattled.
In the absence of a suspect and unwilling to concede that the killings may have been inspired by inter-gang rivalry, they have been blaming India’s external intelligence agency without any evidence. This, when their own investigation points to involvement of local criminals who were too familiar with the layout of the localities of their victims and detachments of comrades who helped them make good their escape and blend into their communities.
