NEW DELHI: Amir Sarfaraz‘s killing in Lahore seems to have sent shock waves across Lashkar-e-Taiba ranks with the outfit’s brass holding emergency meetings at its headquarter in Muridke and at another key office in Samma Satta in Bahawalpur, sources said Monday.
It has also emerged that Sarfaraz had been provided security by ISI, which was reviewed last year in the wake of a string of targeted killings in Pakistan of persons who were wanted for terror crimes against India.The security upgrade turned out to be inadequate.
It is particularly the brazenness – with the two assailants entering Sarfaraz’s house to shoot him thrice on the first floor – that has left ISI and LeT rattled for the safety of key operatives they had deployed to hurt India.
Pakistan media reported that the assailants, believed to be locals, were familiar with the topography of the area and had conducted a recce. Photographs of Sarfaraz eating at a restaurant and walking on a street in Islampora have surfaced, besides a video showing him hurriedly getting into an auto perhaps after sensing that he was being tailed.
Minutes after the assailants fled, Pakistan army and intelligence officials rushed to Sarfaraz’s house and took him to Combined Military Hospital. While some reports claimed he had died, according to others, he was critically wounded and had been put on ventilator.