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Saifullah Khalid: Who's the Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist, mastermind of 2006 attack on RSS headquarters, killed in Pakistan?
Saifullah Khalid, a dreaded terrorist behind several major terror attacks in India, has been killed. A commander of Hafiz Saeed's Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), he was reportedly shot dead by unknown assailants in Pakistan's Sindh province on Sunday (May 18).
Also known as Vinode Kumar, Khalid was the head of the Nepal terror module. His death adds to the series of mysterious killings of high-profile terrorists in Pakistan in recent years.
But what terror attacks was he responsible for in India?
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We will explain.
Who is Saifullah Khalid?
Saifullah Khalid, who used many aliases including Mohammed Salim, was the mastermind of the terror attack on the headquarters of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) at Nagpur in 2006. All three terrorists were shot dead in an encounter with the police.
Before the RSS attack, Khalid was accused of plotting the shooting at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bengaluru in 2005. IIT professor Munish Chandra Puri was killed and four others were injured in the terror attack.
The terrorists were, however, successful in fleeing the scene. After the police investigation, Lashkar terrorist Abu Anas, a close associate of Khalid, was chargesheeted. Anas remains at large.
Khalid, alias Razaullah Nizamani Khalid, was also behind the attack on a Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) camp at Rampur in Uttar Pradesh in 2008. Seven CRPF personnel and a civilian had died in the terror attack. The two terrorists had escaped in the darkness.
Khalid became the head of the LeT's Nepal module around mid-2000. He was responsible for recruiting cadres, providing financial and logistic support and enabling the movement of LeT operatives across the Indo-Nepal border, reported PTI.
According to India Today, the LeT commander married a local woman, Nagma Banu, in Nepal when he was living there under a false identity.
Khalid reportedly collaborated with Lashkar's 'launching commanders' — Azam Cheema, alias Babaji, and the terror group's chief accountant, Yaqoob.
According to ThePrint's sources, Khalid shifted back to Pakistan after Indian intelligence exposed the Nepal module of the LeT. There he worked with several leaders of the LeT and Jamaat-ud-Dawah, including Yusuf Muzammil, LeT commander for Jammu and Kashmir, Muzammil Iqbal Hashmi and Muhammad Yusuf Taibi.
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Khalid was also assigned to recruit cadres from the Badin and Hyderabad districts of Pakistan's Sindh, along with collecting funds for the terror organisation.
Lashkar's Saifullah Khalid shot dead
Saifullah Khalid was reportedly killed by three unknown gunmen in the city of Badin.
'He left his residence at Matli this afternoon and was gunned down by assailants near a crossing at Badni in Sindh province,' officials in New Delhi told PTI on Sunday.
Khalid was declared brought dead at a hospital in Sindh, with reports saying it was a case of personal enmity.
Mysterious killings of terrorists in Pakistan
There has been a surge in unexplained killings of high-profile terrorists in Pakistan in recent years.
In March this year, Hafiz Saeed 's close aide, Abu Qatal, was allegedly shot dead by unknown assailants in the Jhelum district of Pakistan's Punjab province. The 43-year-old LeT commander was reported to be Saeed's nephew. Following his murder, the security of Saeed was increased.
Sheikh Jameel-ur-Rehman, the self-styled secretary general of the United Jihad Council, was found dead in mysterious circumstances in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's Abbottabad in March 2024.
Another terrorist was killed by unknown assailants in Pakistan. Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terrorist Shahid Latif, believed to be the mastermind behind the 2016 Pathankot attack, was gunned down in Sialkot in October 2023.
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Dawood Malik, a known aide of India's wanted terrorist Maulana Masood Azhar , was shot dead in North Waziristan by unidentified gunmen days before Latif's killing.
Two motorbike-borne assailants shot dead Maulana Ziaur Rehman in Pakistan's Karachi in September 2023. He radicalised youth to take up arms and wage jihad against India.
The same month, Abu Qasim Kashmiri was assassinated by unknown men while praying inside the Al-Qudus mosque in Rawalakot. He was believed to be the main plotter of the Dhangri attack in Rajouri district that killed seven and injured another 13.
In August 2023, Sardar Hussain Arain, Hafiz Saeed's associate, was killed in Qazi Ahmad town in Sindh's Shaheed Benazirabad district.
Paramjit Singh Panjwar, a Pakistan-based Khalistani terrorist, was shot dead by two unidentified gunmen in Lahore in May 2023.
Bashir Ahmad Peer alias Imtiyaz Alam, a close aide of Hizbul Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin, was killed at point-blank range by the assailants outside a shop in Rawalpindi in February 2023.
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A week later, former Al-Badr Mujahideen commander Syed Khalid Raza was shot dead in Karachi by unknown men on bikes.
In March 2022, Zahoor Mistry, one of the hijackers of Indian Airlines flight IC 814, was killed by two bike-borne assailants in Karachi's Akhtar colony.
With inputs from agencies
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