ISLAMABAD: Pakistan‘s interior minister Mohsin Naqvi said on Monday that law-enforcement agencies suspected “India’s involvement” in the “targeted killing” of ISI henchman Amir Sarfaraz, aka Tamba, just over five years after his acquittal in the 2013 murder of Indian death-row prisoner Sarabjit Singh.
Naqvi said at a presser in Lahore, where Sarfaraz lived, that the fatal attack on him by two motorbike-borne assailants conforms to “a pattern”.
“India is suspected to have been involved in four other murders (on Pakistan soil). We await the conclusion of the investigation before making further statements,” he said.
There was no response from the Indian govt to the allegation.
Police said Tamba, nicknamed after copper-plated bullets, was at home in Lahore’s Islampura neighbourhood when the assailants came calling. They shot him at close range the moment he answered the doorbell. He died of his injuries in hospital.
Based on a complaint by Tamba’s brother Junaid Sarfraz, police registered a case against the unidentified biker duo.
The Punjab govt referred the case to the police’s counter-terrorism department, a front for ISI.
Tamba and his alleged accomplice, Mudasir Munir, had fatally attacked Sarabjit Singh with bricks and iron rods at Kot Lakhpat prison in April 2013. Singh had been sentenced to death after being convicted of spying and orchestrating a series of bomb attacks that killed 14 people in Lahore and Faisalabad in 1990.
Sarabjit was killed two months after India executed Afzal Guru, convicted as the mastermind of the 2001 Parliament attack,
On December 14, 2018, a sessions court in Lahore acquitted Tamba and Munir of the charge of killing Singh and ordered their release after all witnesses retracted their statements.
Tamba, 45, was unmarried and lived with his brothers. He was a spice dealer and believed to be close to Lashkar-e-Taiba founder Hafiz Saeed.
Naqvi said at a presser in Lahore, where Sarfaraz lived, that the fatal attack on him by two motorbike-borne assailants conforms to “a pattern”.
“India is suspected to have been involved in four other murders (on Pakistan soil). We await the conclusion of the investigation before making further statements,” he said.
There was no response from the Indian govt to the allegation.
Police said Tamba, nicknamed after copper-plated bullets, was at home in Lahore’s Islampura neighbourhood when the assailants came calling. They shot him at close range the moment he answered the doorbell. He died of his injuries in hospital.
Based on a complaint by Tamba’s brother Junaid Sarfraz, police registered a case against the unidentified biker duo.
The Punjab govt referred the case to the police’s counter-terrorism department, a front for ISI.
Tamba and his alleged accomplice, Mudasir Munir, had fatally attacked Sarabjit Singh with bricks and iron rods at Kot Lakhpat prison in April 2013. Singh had been sentenced to death after being convicted of spying and orchestrating a series of bomb attacks that killed 14 people in Lahore and Faisalabad in 1990.
Sarabjit was killed two months after India executed Afzal Guru, convicted as the mastermind of the 2001 Parliament attack,
On December 14, 2018, a sessions court in Lahore acquitted Tamba and Munir of the charge of killing Singh and ordered their release after all witnesses retracted their statements.
Tamba, 45, was unmarried and lived with his brothers. He was a spice dealer and believed to be close to Lashkar-e-Taiba founder Hafiz Saeed.
Source Agencies
