On February 26, unidentified men killed the Pakistan-based terror outfit Al Badr’s former commander Syed Khalid Raza outside his residence in Gulistan-e-Johar Block 7 area in Karachi, Pakistan.
According to reports, Raza was gunned down in a targeted attack. He was walking towards his car when two armed men opened fire. He died of a single bullet wound to the head. It is also reported that the assailants did not take Raza’s cash or personal belongings; further suggesting this was a targeted attack.
Al Badr was founded in the 1990s with the alleged backing of Pakistan’s ISI. Raza was Al Badr’s commander for eight years. However, India’s security forces successfully wiped out the terror outfit. Subsequently, Raza was rehabilitated as a school director. He served as the private school system’s deputy director and Federation of Private Schools Vice Chairman when he was killed on February 26.
Last week, another terrorist, one of India’s most wanted terrorists and founding member of the terror outfit Hizbul Mujahideen Imtiaz Alam alias Bashir Ahmed Peer was shot dead in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. According to reports, he was responsible for identifying routes for infiltrating India and dispatching their fresh recruits to Kashmir.
Pakistan-Based Terror Outfit Al Badr
The Pakistan-based terror outfit Al Badr operates in the Kashmir region. The terror outfit was formed in June 1998 to strengthen the ‘Kashmiri freedom struggle’ and ‘liberate’ Jammu and Kashmir from India and merge it with Pakistan.
However, the terror outfit’s origins can be traced back to 1971 during Pakistan’s occupation of Bangladesh (erstwhile East Pakistan), where the terror-outfit carried out a pogrom against the Bengali-speaking population. Later, the terror outfit operated under the Hizbul Mujahideen before being encouraged to conduct independent operations by Pakistan’s ISI in 1998.
It is reported that Al Badr is headquartered in Mansehra, Pakistan, with training camps in North West Frontier Province (NWPF) in Pakistan and Kotli and Muzaffarabad in Pakistan-occupied Jammu Kashmir.
The terror outfit enforces a strict Islamic lifestyle where it operates. For example, it was reported that the terror outfit ordered women to quit jobs, wear veils, quit studies after age 14 and not venture out without a male escort in August 2003. The terror outfit also killed three young women, including two college students, in three separate incidents led by Al Badr’s area commander Zubair Gul in December 2002.
The terror outfit also opposed diplomatic negotiations between India and Pakistan. The terror outfit’s chief Bakht Zameen in an interview said that Pakistan should focus on Jihad instead of negotiating a settlement; he further asked Pakistan not to take steps which might undermine the ‘freedom movement’ in Kashmir.
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