Pathankot attack mastermind killed outside mosque in Pakistan

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

The officials in the know of the development said that the incident happened 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, 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 Sailkot and had been involved in planning, facilitation and execution of terror attacks in India.

The officials said that Latif had entered Kashmir in 1993 from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir as a cadre of the banned Hakar-ul-Ansar terror group. However, he was arrested a year later and sent the Kol Balwal jail in Jammu.

It is believed that he was brainwashed further by Masood Azhar, who was also lodged in that jail till he was set free in 1989 in exchange for the passengers of IC-814, an Indian Airlines plane that was hijacked by terrorists and taken to Kandahar.

After spending 16 years in 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 Jaish-e-Mohammed terror group.

"This is the biggest blow to JeM on Pakistan soil," an official said.

Latif, a resident of Aminabad in Punjab's Gujranwala, was wanted by the National Investigation Agency (NIA).

Seven IAF personnel were killed when four JeM terrorists sneaked into the Pathankot Air Force Station on January 2, 2016. The siege went on for three days.