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Sajid Mir: Conspirator of 26/11 Mumbai Attacks reportedly poisoned inside Pakistan jail

8 months ago
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Reports indicate that Sajid Mir, a notorious member of the Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist group, known for orchestrating the Mumbai 26/11 attacks, has allegedly been poisoned while serving a 15-year jail term at Central Jail in Dera Ghazi Khan, Pakistan. He was sentenced for a terror-financing case by the anti-terrorism court in Pakistan last year.

He was shifted from the Lahore central jail, a few months ago where he had been held since last year.

According to sources, the Pakistani intelligence agency ISI has reportedly airlifted Mir, and he is currently receiving ventilator support at CMH Bahawalpur.

The alleged poisoning of Mir comes at a time when several assassinations of terrorists who are hostile to India or those who have carried out terror attacks against India by unknown entities. 

In recent years, a significant number of Kashmiri terrorists and Pakistan-based militants, involved in planning and orchestrating attacks against India, have been eliminated under mysterious circumstances by individuals whose identities remain undisclosed.

Who is Sajid Mir?

Sajid Mir, chief commander of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), believed to be in his mid-40s, is one of India’s most wanted terrorists and has a bounty of $5 million placed on his head by the US for his role in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks. Mir along with Hafiz Saeed, planned the dastardly Mumbai attacks carried by 10 armed Pakistani terrorists which led to the death of 175 innocent people.

Mir allegedly recruited Dawood Gilani, also known as David Coleman Headley, a Pakistani-American, and informant for the FBI/DEA, to plan the Mumbai attacks in collaboration with Pakistani military officers. Serving as the mastermind, Mir orchestrated the largest-ever overseas Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist assault, resulting in the deaths of individuals from various nations, including India and Western countries. 

Sajid Mir acted as the Lashkar-e-Taiba project manager for the November 2008 Mumbai terror strikes, using satellite phones to direct the terrorists involved in the operation, including the execution of hostages. In June 2022, Mir was jailed for over 15 years in a terror-financing case by an anti-terrorism court in Pakistan.

Several geopolitical analysts suggested it was a calculated move by Islamabad to get the global terror financing watchdog Financial Action Task Force (FATF) off its back, it was a calculated move to sentence him to a 15-year jail term. Pakistani authorities had in the past claimed Mir had died, but Western countries remained unconvinced and demanded proof of his death. On June 20, 2023, the United States moved a proposal, co-sponsored by India, to designate Mir as a global terrorist under the 1267 Al Qaeda Sanctions Committee of the UN Security Council. The proposal aims to impose measures such as asset freezing, travel restrictions, and an arms embargo on Mir. China blocked this move to designate Mir as a “global terrorist” by the UN.

Slamming China, India said, it showed a lack of genuine political will in Beijing to fight the scourge of terrorism. “If we cannot get established terrorists who have been banned across global landscapes proscribed by the United Nations — for petty geopolitical interests —then we really do not have the genuine political will to sincerely fight this challenge of terrorism,” said Prakash Gupta, joint secretary, last year at UN Political at Ministry of External Affairs.

Who is eliminating terrorists hostile to India?

The poisoning of Mir coincidentally comes at a time when already in the last two years, over a dozen individuals listed as “most wanted” by New Delhi have met with mysterious deaths in various locations across Pakistan.  The militants who were eliminated were affiliated with Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Hizbul Mujahideen (HuM), the Khalistan movement, or Jaish-e-Muhammed (JeM).

This series of assassinations began after a failed attempt on the life of LeT founder and mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai attacks, Hafiz Saeed, in Lahore in 2021 which is reminiscent of Akshay Kumar starer movie Baby. The killings followed a similar pattern, where unknown individuals on motorcycles targeted militants accused of terrorism in India. Pakistani authorities conducting the investigations have ascribed the responsibility for these killings to the intelligence agency of a hostile nation. 

A Pakistani official involved in the ongoing probes disclosed that the hostile spy agency has set up a network of local assassins, including disenchanted former law enforcement personnel, to execute these targeted acts. The official further claimed that India manages this network through operatives stationed in a Gulf state, potentially alluding to the UAE. Both Pakistani authorities and the media have chosen to remain silent about these incidents. 

After a press conference in 2021 by the then Pakistan Interior Minister, Rana Sanaullah, following a bombing near Hafiz Saeed’s residence in Lahore, Islamabad has downplayed the mysterious assassinations of militants associated with LeT, JeM, HuM, and the Khalistan separatist movement. This is seen as an attempt to conceal the identities of these “most wanted terrorists” in India.

Some of the key terrorists killed in the recent past by unknown attacks:

  • Maulana Raheem Ullah Tariq, a JeM leader and close associate of Maulana Masood Azhar, was shot dead in Karachi on November 13, 2023, and the Pakistani media portrayed the incident as the killing of a local cleric.
  • Former LeT terrorist Akram Khan, also known as Akram Ghazi, head of LeT’s recruitment cell, was shot dead in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Bajaur tribal district on 9th November 2023. Pakistani media referred to him as a “muezzin,” someone who proclaims the call for daily prayers. 
  • On November 5, 2023, Khwaja Shahid, also known as Mian Mujahid, was allegedly kidnapped and later found beheaded near the Line of Control in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. Shahid was a prominent LeT figure and one of the masterminds behind the 2018 terrorist attack on an Indian Army camp in Sunjuwan, which claimed seven lives. 
  • In October 2023 Shahid Latif, a former JeM operative and alleged mastermind of the 2016 Pathankot attack, was shot dead by three unknown individuals on a motorcycle in Sialkot, Punjab. Another associate of Latif was killed, and one was injured in the attack.
  • Other key terrorists who were shot dead by unknown gunmen include Riaz Ahmad (alias Abu Qasim), Maulana Ziaur Rehman, Mufti Qaiser Farooqui, Mullah Sardar Hussain Arain, Paramjit Singh Panjwar, Bashir Ahmad Pir (alias Imtiaz Alam), Syed Noor, Syed Khalid Raza, and Mistry Zahoor Ibrahim (alias Zahid Akhund).
Also Read: Alleged Plot To Murder Khalistani Terrorist Thickens With U.S. Blaming Indian Official Behind The Conspiracy

The poisoning of Sajid Mir at this time when already diplomatic tensions were running rife between India and Canada after the assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar the terrorist associated with the militant Khalistan Tiger Force and Canada alleging India for being involved in the assassination.

Also, recently Joe Biden administration sent two top intelligence officials to India to press for a probe into an alleged plot to assassinate a Khalistani terrorist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun on American soil.

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