Who is Sheikh Sajjad Gul, the mastermind behind Pahalgam terror attack, know his Karnataka and Kerala links
Sheikh Sajjad Gul
New Delhi: The relationship between India and Pakistan touched a new low after Pakistan-backed terrorists attacked innocent tourists in Jammu and Kashmir's Pahalgam. Sheikh Sajjad Gul, a 50-year-old Kashmiri and head of Lashkar-e-Taiba proxy The Resistance Front (TRF), has emerged as the mastermind of the cowardly attack, which claimed the lives of 26 people, mostly tourists, on April 22.
Holed up in the Cantonment town of Rawalpindi, Pakistan, under the patronage of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Gul, who also goes by the alias of Sajjad Ahmed Sheikh, has been a planner of a number of terror attacks, including targeted killings between 2020 and 2024 in Central and South Kashmir, grenade attacks in Central Kashmir in 2023, ambush of J&K police personnel in Bijbehra in Anantnag, Gagangir, Z-Morh Tunnel attack in Ganderbal.
The NIA had designated him a terrorist in April 2022 and kept a reward of Rs 10 lakh on his head. The official said that during the investigation into the deadly April 22 Pahalgam attack, links and some communications have been traced back to Gul. The TRF had claimed responsibility for the attack.
The group, under Gul's instruction, had shot 25 tourists at point-blank range after asking their religion in Pahalgam on April 22. A local tourist guide was also killed by the terrorists. Used by Pakistan's external snooping agency ISI as a Kashmiri face of the local Punjabi-dominated Lashkar-e-Taiba, Sheikh was educated in Srinagar and did his MBA from Bangalore, later pivoting to a lab technician course in Kerala. He returned to the Valley, where he opened a diagnostic lab and started providing logistical support to the terror group.
During his work as an overground worker (OGW) of the terror group, Gul was caught by the Special Cell of the Delhi police in 2002 from Nizamuddin Railway Station with 5 kilograms of RDX. It was revealed that he was conducting a recce and conspiring to conduct serial blasts in the national capital, for which he was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment on August 7, 2003.
He moved to Pakistan after his release from prison in 2017, where the ISI chose him to lead a proxy of the LeT — The Resistance Front (TRF) — in Kashmir in 2019 to give it a facade of an indigenous terror movement of Jammu and Kashmir.
The creation of TRF was a strategy of the ISI in the aftermath of the Pulwama incident in February 2019, when Pakistan had come to the adverse notice of the world for sponsoring and harbouring terror outfits like LeT and JeM.
His brother, an ex-doctor in Shri Maharaja Hari Singh Hospital, Srinagar, was also a terrorist in the 1990s who had migrated to Saudi Arabia and later to Pakistan, where he is now involved in terror funding with fugitives in Gulf countries.
(With PTI Inputs)
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Time of India
28 minutes ago
- Time of India
Three thefts in two weeks on metro rail network
Ahmedabad: Infocity police in Gandhinagar registered a theft case on Wednesday after materials worth Rs 3.81 lakh were stolen from the GNLU metro station at Koba village. This was the third theft reported on the Ahmedabad-Gandhinagar metro rail network in the past two weeks. Ravindrasinh Bihola, a 27-year-old security guard, filed the FIR with Infocity police. He stated that he was posted at the GNLU metro station for the past three months. He was on night duty from 8 pm to 8 am. According to his complaint, the theft occurred during the intervening night of May 30 and May 31. Bihola said that the stolen items were stored by the Omega Lift Company in large and medium wooden boxes under the elevated track at three locations near the station. At about 6.30 am on May 31, he noticed that the wooden panels of the boxes were broken, and the materials inside were missing. He informed the incoming guard and his supervisor, Kailash, who then contacted the lift company officials. The stolen items include 480 non-standard base gaskets, 456 anchor bolts, 912 spring washers, and various trimming gaskets. Omega Company representatives inspected the location and confirmed the theft. Earlier, on May 22, around 500 metres of copper cables worth Rs 9 lakh were stolen from near Shahpur metro station, which caused a disruption in service for nearly 7 hours. Another case of service disruption was reported on June 2, when 700 metres of copper cable worth Rs 17.85 lakh was stolen between Koba Circle and Old Koba stations. With regard to the latest case, Infocity police registered a case of theft against unknown persons and began an investigation. Cops are also probing if there is any link between the present case and the two earlier incidents. Metro rail authorities are yet to issue a statement regarding the latest theft reported on Wednesday.
Time of India
28 minutes ago
- Time of India
Fake HC lawyer dupes woman of 3 lakh
Kolkata: A complaint was filed at Tiljala PS against an individual who allegedly impersonated a high court lawyer and defrauded a Picnic Garden resident of Rs 3 lakh. The accused allegedly forged official court orders, notices, and even judges' signatures, and set up mock virtual court sessions and falsely used the HC registrar's name to convince the victim of his legitimacy as a legal representative at the Calcutta HC. "He systematically deceived me into transferring over Rs 3 lakh," the woman said. When she turned suspicious, the accused became unreachable. "We collected technical evidence and started a probe," said an officer.
The Hindu
29 minutes ago
- The Hindu
Russia outlaws British Council as ‘undesirable organisation'
Russia on Thursday (June 5, 2025) banned the British Council as an 'undesirable organisation', as Moscow branded London the architect of global crisis and 'instigator of wars'. Relations between the two countries were at rock bottom even before Russia launched its full-scale military offensive on Ukraine in 2022, soured by a slew of espionage and interference scandals, including the 2018 poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal on British soil. Also read | War and talks: On Russia and Ukraine Russia's prosecutor general accused the British Council of trying to promote British interests 'under the guise of teaching English' and of supporting the 'LGBT movement', which Russia has outlawed as 'extremist'. 'Various projects are being implemented to systematically discredit the domestic and foreign policies of the Russian Federation,' it added. Moscow has labelled dozens of Western-backed organisations 'undesirable', a designation that outlaws their work in Russia and makes anybody who works for them liable to years-long jail sentences. State media reported that the FSB security services, which said it provided evidence for the decision, called Britain 'the main source of global crises, a provocateur and instigator of wars'. 'London organises coups, weakens not only its geopolitical enemies but also its closest allies, pits nations against each other and prevents the resolution of bloody conflicts that it unleashed,' Russia's RIA Novosti quoted the FSB as saying in a statement. Britain has been one of Ukraine's strongest backers since Russia began its military offensive. Russia under President Vladimir Putin has for years cracked down on independent civil society, outlawing groups and prosecuting dissenters in a campaign that has escalated amid the Ukraine conflict and been widely slammed by rights groups and the West.
