Key 26/11 plotter Sajid Mir in Pakistan hospital after 'poisoning'
Key 26/11 plotter Sajid Mir in Pakistan hospital after ‘poisoning’
NEW DELHI: Amid persisting mystery about killings of Lashkar-e-Taiba operatives, a cascading buzz about the well-being of global terrorist and LeT commander Sajid Mir, one of the key plotters of 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, appears to have further deepened the uncertainty in Pakistan’s jihadi circles.
Mir, who is being held in a Kot Lakhpat jail since his sentencing by an anti-terrorism court in June last year, was suddenly admitted to hospital. Reports suggest that he was poisoned and has since been on ventilator support. This comes in the wake of reports that threat inputs had prompted his transfer to a Dera Gazi Khan prison.
Sources here, however, appeared to be wary of the reports suspecting that these could very well be a ruse by Pakistan’s military-intelligence complex to dodge foreign insistence to take tough action against the Lashkar commander.
Mir was sentenced to eight years on charges of terror financing and a fine of Rs 4.2 lakh had also been imposed on him only after the pressure on Pak became unbearable and the risk of being further penalised by the FATF loomed large.
The LeT commander was detained last April in a hush-hush affair while the prison term was awarded in June 2022 just before a meeting of the FATF, an intergovernmental organisation which tracks terror financing and money laundering.
Sources in the Indian intelligence also said that staging his death could also be an eyewash in order to stop his extradition to the US. Mir, who has a five million dollar bounty on his head announced by the FBI, is wanted by the US government.
According to FBI, Mir (45) had changed his appearance through plastic surgery after the Mumbai attacks. He was LeT’s foreign recruiter at one time and the main handler for American terrorist David Coleman Headley alias Dawood Gilani.
A US justice department document mentions how the 26/11 attackers were in real-time telephonic contact with Mir and his associates- Abu Qahafa and Mazhar Iqbal -during the attack.
On Mir’s advice, Headley had changed his given name of “Dawood Gilani” to “David Coleman Headley” in order to facilitate his activities on behalf of Lashkar by enabling him to present himself in India as an American who was neither Muslim nor Pakistani. Mir further advised Headley to open an immigration office in Mumbai as a cover for his surveillance activities and was given 25,000 dollars for the set-up.
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