New Delhi: Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) operative Shahid Latif had extensive knowledge of Jammu and Kashmir’s topography, with a particular focus on the regions of Kathua, Samba, and Punjab. He was also a “valuable asset” for facilitating the infiltration of terrorists into India and trained terror operatives in drone technology — this is how sources within intelligence agencies describe Latif, who was killed by unidentified gunmen in Pakistan’s Sialkot district Tuesday.
Latif, a designated terrorist under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), was the alleged key conspirator behind the 2016 Pathankot air base attack — in which three Indian Air Force personnel were killed — as well as the Sunjwan attack in 2022, in which a CISF officer lost his life.
According to sources in the National Investigation Agency (NIA), Latif had guided and facilitated the four attackers who entered the air base in January 2016 to carry out the Pathankot attack, and to disrupt the prime minister’s visit by attacking military installations in 2022.
He was chargesheeted by the agency in the Pathankot case in December 2016 and in the Sunjawan case in October 2022. ThePrint has seen both charge sheets.
According to a source in the security establishment, Latif, a resident of Gujranwala in Pakistan, built an extensive network while he was in prison in Jammu from 1994 to 2010, which then helped him run his operations from across the border.
The source added that Latif was based at Shakargarh camp in Pakistan’s Punjab province, where a substantial number of operatives were being trained and a series of attacks in India were planned.
“A series of attacks were planned from this camp, including the Pathankot attack of 2016 and the attack on a police station in Kathua in March 2015 and in Punjab in the same year. It was Latif who facilitated the crossing over of these operatives and was coordinating the attacks from this camp,” the source said.
According to the source, Latif became such an “asset” that he started facilitating the launching of terrorists from other organisations as well, his extensive network of people helping him do so. “He had the tactical expertise that other organisations also started using. He had extensive knowledge of Jammu’s topography and a wide network in India as he had been in prison there from 1993 to 2010.”
The source further said: “He would arrange all logistics for the operatives who crossed over to India from Pakistan. There were people who would receive them, arrange their stay, hand over money and take care of all logistics. And all this was being coordinated till the last detail by Latif who was sitting in Pakistan.”
According to a second source in the security establishment, Latif had also started training operatives in how to operate drones, use them to transport drugs and ammunition to India through Punjab, and how to ensure they went undetected.
“The Kathua and Samba sectors were his USP. He knew the territory very well, so he started training operatives on how to use drones to pump in drugs and arms using the technology without getting caught,” the source said.
Latif was also allegedly involved in the April 2022 Sunjwan attack before the visit of Prime Minister Narenda Modi. According to sources, terrorists were holed up at Sunjwan and were planning a major attack but it was foiled after a fierce gun battle erupted between security forces and terrorists near an army installation in which a CISF officer was killed and several others were injured.
According to a notification by the Ministry of Home Affairs, Latif was also a wanted accused in the Kandahar case of hijacking of an Indian Airlines flight on 24 December 1999. ThePrint has seen the notification.
‘Equipped, guided operatives to carry out attacks’
According to the NIA charge sheet filed in the 2016 Pathankot case, Latif held a meeting in Sialkot where he discussed the plan for the attack with operatives. He showed the location of the Pathankot Air Force Station on Google Maps and told the operatives that it was easy to attack the base as there were forests surrounding the station.
The charge sheet also mentioned that the NIA accessed electronic evidence to establish that the Pathankot attack was planned and originated from Pakistan, with the active involvement of JeM chief Masood Azhar, his brother Abdul Rauf, one Kashif Jan, and Latif.
The NIA also gave a statement, which ThePrint has seen, that it has been established through legal intercepts and statements of witnesses that Kashif Jan and Latif “guided, equipped and launched” the four terrorists who carried out the terrorist attack at the IAF station, killing and injuring people and destroying public property.
Latif, sources said, had first come to J&K as part of the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen. Media reports said he was among the militants holed up in the Hazratbal shrine during its siege in 1994. He was arrested in J&K in 1994 and was finally released in 2010, and sent back to Pakistan via Wagah after completing 16 years in jail.
In the NIA chargesheet in the Sunjwan terrorist attack case, he was named as a key conspirator among 12.
The case pertained to a conspiracy hatched among Kashmir-based terrorist operatives, Pakistan-based handlers and terrorists of JeM to disrupt Modi’s visit in Jammu in April 2022. To carry out the attack, the NIA said in its charge sheet, two JeM terrorists were infiltrated into India through a tunnel.
This tunnel, the NIA said, was allegedly excavated on the International Border in the area falling under BOP (Border Observation Post) Chack Faqira in the Samba sector in J&K. The movement of the terrorists, however, was intercepted by the security forces and both terrorists were killed in a gun battle in Sunjwan, Jammu.
(Edited by Smriti Sinha)