In another major blow to anti-India terror operations, Dawood Malik, the founder of the Lashkar-e-Jabbar terror outfit and a close aide of wanted terrorist Masood Azhar, has been assassinated by unknown gunmen in Pakistan's North Waziristan, according to reports.
According to a report by Dawn, Malik was killed in what the police called a targeted attack in the Mirali area of North Waziristan district on Friday. The attackers managed to escape after the incident. Police also recovered the tortured body of an unidentified person.
Some reports say that Malik was killed while he was at a private clinic where he was ambushed by the attackers. He was subject to intense scrutiny due to his role in the development of Lashkar-e-Jabbar and his connection with a broad network of terrorists.
Malik's affiliation with Masood Azhar
It is important to note that Azhar is India's one of the most wanted terrorists who founded the Jaish-e-Mohammed and is responsible for several terror attacks on India, including the Pulwama attack in 2019. Masood Azhar was designated as a 'global terrorist' in 2019.
Malik was considered as Azhar's right-hand man and was involved in the operations of several terror outfits such as JeM, and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. According to some reports, Malik barely survived the Balakot air strike conducted by India in the wake of the Pulwama attack.
Malik's death marks yet another addition to a spade of killings of terrorists heavily involved in anti-India activities. Earlier this month, JeM terrorist Qaiser Farooq, a close aide of another wanted terrorist Hafiz Saeed, was gunned down by unknown gunmen in Karachi.
The list of assassinated terrorists
Several terrorists, who have instigated attacks against India, have been killed by unidentified assailants on foreign soil. Recently, the killings of Khalistani terrorists Hardeep Singh Nijjar and Sukhdool Singh aka Sukha Duneke in Canada have made headlines amid strained relations between New Delhi and Ottawa.
The chain of anti-India terrorists being assassinated started with Zahoor Mistry, one of the hijackers of the Kathmandu-bound Indian Airlines Flight 814 in 1999, who was shot dead in Karachi last year.
After that came Ripudaman Singh Malik, a Canada-based terrorist who was accused and acquitted in the bombing of Air India Flight 182 which killed more than 300 people. He was shot dead in Canada in July 2022.
The spade of unexplained killings of some of these terrorists has rattled Pakistan's security and intelligence agencies. Malik is the 17th terrorist involved in anti-India operations to be mysteriously killed on foreign soil.
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