LeT It Be Known: This Is Lakhvi

Born on December 30, 1960, Lakhvi’s stock in the shadowy world of jehad zoomed when his sister got married to Abu Abdur Rahman Sareehi, a Saudi who was counted among Osama bin Laden’s trusted lieutenants. In 1988, Sareehi established Lashkar training camps in Afghanistan’s Kunar and Paktia provinces; Lakhvi was among the top trainers there. Perhaps his clout in the Lashkar was also enhanced because of the Rs 10 million Sareehi donated for building the Lashkar’s Muridke headquarters, from where the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) now operates.

Lashkar’s participation in the Afghan jehad enabled both its founder, Prof Hazid Mohammad Saeed, and Lakhvi to endear themselves to the Pakistan intelligence establishment. The two were persuaded to deploy their foot-soldiers in Kashmir, following the Soviet pullout from Afghanistan in 1989. Lakhvi was made the Lashkar’s operations chief in Kashmir, where the militant outfit was soon to court infamy.

The December 13, 2001, attack on Parliament prompted a ban on the Lashkar. Saeed resigned as LeT chief to establish JuD and appointed Maulana Abdul Wahid Kashmiri as his successor. Lakhvi was retained as LeT’s operations commander. Yet he turned against Saeed, ostensibly because he believed that the JuD had been floated to corner the massive funds collected for jehad in Kashmir. But those close to Lakhvi say he fell out with Saeed because of his decision to marry, at the age of 64, a 28-year-old widow whose husband had died fighting in Kashmir. Whatever the reason, Lakhvi was provoked into floating his own group, the Khair-un-Naas (KuN), whose fighters used to take an oath to assassinate Saeed. A year on, minders in the Pak intelligence establishment brokered truce between them. The rest, as they say, is history.