Islamabad, Aug 9: A senior commander of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) was found dead under suspicious circumstances at a mosque in Pakistan’s capital Islamabad, according to reports.
The commander, identified as Qari Saeed Abdul Aziz, reportedly had food at an unfamiliar restaurant before reaching Quba Mosque to offer prayers. He allegedly collapsed near the mosque gate and died. The exact cause of his death was not immediately known.
Qari Saeed was reportedly responsible for an LeT department that provided assistance to the families of terrorists killed during encounters in Jammu and Kashmir.
His death comes days after a senior LeT operative, Rizwan Hanif, claimed in a video that around 30 members of the banned outfit had been killed by “unknown men” in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir (PoJK) over the past three to four years.
Hanif alleged that LeT members had been killed in places including Peshawar, Karachi, Rawalpindi, Rawalakot and Muzaffarabad.
Lashkar-e-Taiba, which has been designated a terrorist organisation by the United Nations, is among the groups linked to the 2008 Mumbai attacks, in which 166 people were killed.
The latest claim has drawn attention as an apparent public acknowledgement by an LeT-linked figure of the deaths of members of the outfit inside Pakistan. The circumstances surrounding Qari Saeed’s death remain unclear.
