New Delhi: Lashkar-e-Tayyeba (LeT) founding member Hafiz Abdul Salam Bhuttavi, who has also served as the second-in-command of the terror group, has reportedly died in a Pakistani prison.
Bhuttavi, believed to be in his early 80 by some estimates, helped prepare the terrorists who carried out the 2008 Mumbai attack. He was sentenced to 16-and-a-half years in prison by an anti-terrorism court in Lahore, in a case of terror financing, in August 2020.
According to a report in Hindustan Times, Bhuttavi died of a heart attack in a prison at Sheikhupura in the Punjab province of Pakistan. The report added that LeT-affiliated organisations had shared videos purportedly showing Bhuttavi’s funeral, which is believed to have been held Tuesday morning near Lahore.
The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) listed Bhuttavi as a terrorist in 2012, for “participating in the financing, planning, facilitating, preparing, or perpetrating of acts or activities by, in conjunction with, under the name of, on behalf of, or in support of” or “otherwise supporting acts and activities of” Lashkar-e-Tayyeba.
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Hafiz Saeed’s deputy and LeT’s ‘preeminent scholar’
The UNSC recognised Bhuttavi as LeT chief Hafiz Saeed’s deputy who acted in his stead on at least two occasions when the latter was detained.
The UNSC page on Bhuttavi says he handled the day-to-day functioning of the LeT during the periods of Saeed’s detention, especially days after 26/11, when the latter was detained and held until June 2009.
Bhuttavi was also considered to be one of LeT’s preeminent scholars, instructing leaders and members and issuing fatwas authorising LeT operations, according to the UNSC. Apart from this, he is said to have been responsible for the LeT’s madrassa networks and establishing its base in Lahore.
In 2011, the then US Treasury Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence David S. Cohen called Hafiz Abdul Salam Bhuttavi one of “LeT’s most significant leaders”.
“Over the past 20 years…Bhuttavi [has] been responsible for fundraising, recruitment, and indoctrination of operatives,” he added, as the US Treasury Department designated Bhuttavi and another LeT member — Zafar Iqbal — as terrorists in September 2011.
The department’s press release noted Bhuttavi’s date of birth as 1940. Bhuttavi also faced certain “restrictive measures” imposed by the European Union in March 2012, on people “associated with the al-Qaida network”.