'Critically hurt', co-founder of LeT Amir Hamza lands in Lahore hospital
Mystery shrouds the sudden hospitalization of
Lashkar-e-Taiba
(LeT) co-founder
Amir Hamza
on Tuesday.
The details reaching here suggest that the 66-year-old editor of Lashkar's magazines was critically injured at his house and had to be admitted at a military hospital in Lahore under
ISI
's security cover. The incident comes three days after
Abu Saifullah
, a high-ranking Lashkar operative and key recruiter, was gunned down by unidentified gunmen in Pakistan.
Terror sympathisers on pro-Lashkar's Telegram channels were rattled on Tuesday evening, asking members to stay strong during the "crisis", while insisting it was an "accident".
Hamza, who belongs to Gujranwala city in Pakistan's Punjab province, was declared a global terrorist by the US in Aug 2012. The top LeT ideologue was referred to as 'Afghan Mujahideen' and was close to
Hafiz Saeed
and Abdul Rehman Makki, both UN-designated terrorists belonging to Lashkar, who had appointed him on the jihadi outfit's central committee.
Before he moved to handling Lashkar's propaganda, Hamza was an active terrorist who was active in India in the early 2000s. He and Saifullah were part of the group behind the 2005 attack on the Indian Institute of Science in Bengaluru. He was, however, pulled out of violent jihad and assigned to the propaganda division which he would soon head.
"He also headed publication division of Lashkar and wrote books like Qafila Da'wat aur Shahadat (Caravan of Proselytizing and Martydom), Shahrah-e-Bahisht (The road to paradise)," said a source.
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In 2018, Saeed had him form another outfit named Jaish-e-Manqafa in the wake of a ban on Lashkar and Jamat-ud-Dawah. The move had fuelled rumours of a rift in Lashkar's top brass but turned out to be a feint.
According to US Treasury department, Hamza, a member of LeT's central advisory committee, actively maintained Lashkar's relationships with other groups under the direction of its emir Hafiz Muhammad Saeed.
"Hamza has led an LeT-associated charity and was also an officer and member of a Lashkar's university trust that was led by Saeed. Hamza's responsibilities as of mid-2010 included publishing propaganda on behalf of Lashkar. Hamza has served as editor of an LeT weekly newspaper and was also contributing articles to the LeT publication," says the website.
"Hamza was also one of three LeT terrorists designated to negotiate the release of detained Lashkar members and also served as the head of LeT's 'special campaigns' department," it adds.
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