A “launching commander” and “chief handler” for the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), who “radicalised, recruited and trained youngsters to carry out attacks in India” — this is how intelligence sources described Hanzala Adnan, who was reportedly shot by unknown gunmen in Pakistan’s Karachi on the intervening night of 2 and 3 December.
Launching commander is a term used for an alleged leader of a terror group, who pushes the outfit’s operatives into Indian territory from launching pads along the India-Pakistan border. These alleged leaders “facilitate entry of these foreign operatives into India and make all logistical arrangements for them, including who will receive them in India”.
According to a source in intelligence, Adnan, who is said to have been highly active in Kashmir valley between 2012 and 2016, allegedly orchestrated several terror attacks in the area, including the August 2015 attack on a Border Security Force convoy on Jammu-Srinagar national highway in Udhampur, which killed two personnel and injured 11 others.
The source further alleged that Adnan played a key role in training the operatives who had infiltrated into India from Pakistan through Tangnarg just 12 days before the attack. While one of the alleged infiltrators — identified by police as Mohammad Naved, resident of Ghulam Mohammadabad in Pakistan — was arrested, a second alleged operative, Noman alias Nomi from Bahawalpur, was killed and two others managed to flee.
Adnan’s name, however, was not mentioned in the chargesheet filed by the National Investigation Agency in the incident, owing to lack of evidence.
Earlier, Adnan allegedly coordinated the attack on a CRPF convoy in J&K’s Pampore in June 2016, in which eight soldiers were killed and 22 injured.
“He was a key operative of Lashkar and launched many operatives in India after training them. One of the operatives arrested in a case had revealed in his interrogation that Adnan had trained him on how to use technology for secured communication with the handlers. He told us that he had devised an application for the same,” claimed the intelligence source quoted above.
Considered to be close to LeT chief Hafiz Saeed, the mastermind of the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, Adnan was reportedly shot at outside his house. He was taken to a Karachi hospital by the Pakistani army, where he succumbed during treatment on 5 December.