Sheikhupura raid: LeJ chief Asif Chotu, three aides killed in gunfight

Muzaffargarh-born group leader was plotting fresh wave of attacks

LAHORE: The chief of an outlawed sectarian extremist group blamed for more than 100 killings has been killed in a gun battle with the counterterrorism police in Sheikhupura.

Lashkar-e-Jhangvi chief Rizwan, aka Asif Chotu, who carried a bounty of Rs3 million, along with three other members of his group — Dr Shakirullah, aka Ali Sufian, and Noorul Amin — were killed in a pre-dawn firefight with a joint team of Sheikhupura’s Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) and Intelligence Bureau on Wednesday.

Asif Chotu, who belonged to the southern Punjab district of Muzaffargarh, had been heading the LeJ since the killing of the group’s chief Malik Ishaq in a gunfight in July 2015. He was directly involved in killing more than 100 people, including two Iranian engineers, PIA’s chairman and PSO’s managing director, while he had indirect involvement in 200-plus sectarian killings.

Chotu had joined the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, a banned sectarian extremist group, in the 1990s. Later he was made commander of the LeJ in Karachi, and after Malik Ishaq’s death, he became Ameer of the group. Chotu had remained in the prison from 2005 to 2012 when he was released on bail. Since then, he had been a proclaimed offender.

Ali Sufian was the chief of LeJ’s Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa chapter. Noorul Amin, also from K-P, was involved in 20-plus killings, including that of police inspector Raja Saqlain of Rawalpindi. He carried a head money of Rs1 million.

According to the CTD spokesperson, the force was tipped off about the presence of three terrorists of the LeJ, along with three or four unknown accomplices, in a Sheikhupura neighbourhood. They were planning an attack on the staff and offices of a sensitive agency in Lahore. And for this purpose, they were travelling from Farooqabad to Sheikhupura en route to Lahore on four motorcycles.

The CTD erected a picket at a railway crossing in Sheikhupura around 10:30pm on Wednesday. When the motorcycles approached the picket, CTD personnel asked the riders to turn themselves in, but they didn’t and instead fled towards the Cattle Market on the Bypass where they took position, according to the CTD spokesperson.

“The terrorists opened indiscriminate fire on the CTD chasing them,” he said. “The police retaliated and a gunfight ensued,” he added. “When the firefight ended, four terrorists lay dead, while three others had managed to escape.”

Three of the victims were identified as Asif Chotu, Ali Sufian and Noorul Amin, but the fourth one couldn’t be immediately identified. Two Kalashnikov assault rifles, two pistols, three kilos of explosives and bullets were also taken into possession.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 19^th, 2017.