Saifullah Khalid, a man behind several terror attacks in India, has been killed in Pakistan’s Sindh province, according to media reports.
A Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operative, Khalid was gunned down by unidentified assailants in Matli city in the Badin district of Sindh. He ignored movement restrictions by his handlers. He was also provided personal security. Khalid stepped out of his residence only to be attacked at a nearby intersection.
Operating under the alias “Vinode Kumar,” Khalid spent several years hiding in Nepal, where he married a local woman, Nagma Banu, and used a fabricated identity. While maintaining a deliberately low profile, he orchestrated critical operations for LeT, handling recruitment and logistics with discretion from across the border.
Khalid’s fingerprints are all over three of the most brazen terror attacks on Indian soil: the 2005 Indian Science Congress (ISC) attack in Bangalore, the 2006 assault on the RSS headquarters in Nagpur, and the 2008 CRPF camp raid in Rampur. Spanning over three years, these coordinated strikes marked a chilling escalation in LeT’s offensive against India and claimed numerous innocent lives.
From Nepal, Khalid relocated to Matli in Sindh, continuing his work with Lashkar-e-Taiba—a UN-designated Pakistani terror outfit—and its front organisation Jamaat-ud-Dawa. In Pakistan, he was primarily involved in recruitment and fundraising for terror activities, maintaining his grip on the militant network from behind the scenes.
The killing of Khalid comes just days after Indian security forces eliminated three other Lashkar operatives, including the group’s feared ‘Operations Commander’ Shahid Kuttay, in an encounter in south Kashmir’s Shopian district.
Kuttay, along with Adnan Shafi of Vanduna Melhura in Shopian and Ahsan ul Haq Sheikh from Murran in neighbouring Pulwama, was killed in the Shukroo Keller area. The operation led to the recovery of two AK-series rifles, a cache of ammunition, grenades, and other military-grade supplies.
A senior official stated that Kuttay, as the Operations Commander of LeT in south Kashmir, played a central role in driving terror recruitment, radicalising vulnerable youth, and was responsible for the deaths of numerous innocent civilians. “He promoted terrorist recruitment in Kashmir, also misled many young men and killed many innocent people,” the official was quoted as saying.
Saifullah Khalid’s death, though at the hands of unknown attackers, adds to the growing list of high-ranking LeT operatives eliminated in recent months—raising questions within the network and delivering another blow to the terror group’s transnational operations.
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