Central intelligence agencies have received information that Abu Qatal, a key member of the Lashkar-e-Taiba known for his involvement in several gruesome terror attacks in Jammu and Kashmir, was allegedly shot dead by unknown assailants on Saturday night in the Jhelum district of Pakistan’s Punjab province.
Abu Qatal alias Faisal Nadeem, also known as Qatal Sindhi, was a close aide of Hafiz Saeed, the mastermind of the Mumbai terror attacks and operated heavily in the Poonch-Rajouri region.
“We received information that he was gunned down by unknown armed assailants on Saturday night while travelling with his security. A member of his security team is also learnt to have been killed, and we are told a search is on for the attackers,” a senior official said.
Qatal was chargesheeted by the NIA in connection with the January 2023 Rajouri attacks that left seven people, including two children, dead.
His name had figured among three Pakistan-based militants who orchestrated the twin terror attacks, the other two being Saifullah alias Sajid Jutt and Mohammad Qasim.
Five people were killed in militant firing on the evening of January 1, 2023, while two others were killed in an IED explosion in the same place the following morning. Fourteen people were injured.
Sources said his involvement also came up during a probe into militant attacks that killed five soldiers each at Bhatta Durian in Poonch district on April 20, 2023, and in the Kandi area of Rajouri district on May 5, 2023.
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He was also said to have masterminded the attack on a bus carrying pilgrims near Shiv Khouri in Reasi district, killing nine and injuring 40 on June 9, 2024.
Considered Saeed’s most trusted handler, an official said 43-year-old Abu Qatal played a key role in planning and executing the LeT’s terror strikes. He infiltrated the Jammu region in early 2000 and exfiltrated in 2005. Sources said he had a vast network of over-ground workers or OGWs in Poonch and Rajouri.
Sources said that Rehman had been reviving his old contacts in the two districts to try and make fresh recruitments to militant ranks. He was also responsible for arms training to fresh recruits, cross-border infiltration by militants, and coordinating militant attacks on civilians and security forces, sources said.
